The Milk of Demon Kindness
by The Old Gringo
Summary: A missionary boy from Idaho travels to Tokyo where he encounters goddesses, demons, police, and the Tokyo Metropolitan High School for the Water Trade.
1. Introduction

**The Milk of Demon Kindness**—Introduction

This fanfiction blends together characters and situations from several sources. I'm classifying it as an _Oh My Goddess!_ story. The setting comes mostly from another series, _Toritsu Mizushō_, which has no licensed English translation and isn't likely to have one. Some of the other sources include: _You're Under Arrest!,_ _Midori Days,_ _Gals!,_ _Sailor Moon's American Dream_ (my old fanfic epic), _Mark of the Succubus,_ _Kare Kano, _and _Onegai Teacher_

Besides the adult situations and the occasional naughty words, some readers may not like my depiction of missionaries in this story. All that said, it's basically a romance with both tragedy and (I hope) comedy.

Thomas Sewell  
The Old Gringo


	2. Chapter 1  Idaho to Tokyo

_In the Year of the Tiger..._

Once upon a time there was a certain neighborhood in Tokyo that was very naughty. It was called "Kabukichō " although it never had a proper Kabuki theater. And while our story will get to Kabukichō, we're going to start very far away in a very different place.

Our very different place called "Idaho." It's been one of the United States of America since July 3, 1890. Our story will begin in an Idaho county we'll call "Basalt." It's a big county, but has only a few thousand people. "Basalt" is a good name for it; an awful lot of it _is_ basalt, or, to put it differently, lava. There haven't been any eruptions for a long while, but there is still lots of lava: Old volcanoes; cinder cones; lava flats that are not very flat at all. There are not many roads through the lava flats; roadways had to be blasted and filled.

The county is big, as I have said, so there are other things besides lava stuff. There are mountains, which grow larger and higher; one range includes the highest mountain in the state, though that peak is in the next county. On either side of this range there are valleys carved by rivers, not very big rivers, but big enough to irrigate at least part of the valleys for farms and ranches. There aren't as many farms now as there were a couple of generations ago, when the government was doing things in the southeastern wasteland because if something went wrong, they figured they couldn't make it much worse. There are less than half as many children, even though each child usually has two or three siblings, often more. Most of them find lives outside the county once they grow up, sometimes very far away.

There are fewer churches than there used to be. The Lutherans are still hanging on in their black-stone church on Main in the county seat, the oldest in the county (though it started out Methodist.) There's a small Catholic church dating from the 1960s. The Kingdom Hall, formerly a home, is an (empty) home again; the last Jehovah's Witness left in the 1990s. There are three more churches in the county, but they belong to the same Church—we'll just call it "The Church" from now on. Most of the people who still live in Basalt County belong to The Church, as do a majority of the people in the state.

There are quite a lot of Youngs in Basalt County—quite a lot of Youngs in the state and in neighboring states. One set of Youngs (the dentist and his family) are Korean. However, like all the other Youngs in the county, they belong to The Church. There once was a Young in the county who was one of _the_ Youngs from way back and stubbornly remained a Methodist, but he passed on childless during the Nixon Presidency. The Church _still_ hasn't given up on that one; we won't explain further at this point.

Caldwell Young was firmly in the bosom of The Church, so much so that he was about to go on a mission for it. On the last night he expected to be sleeping at home for at least two years, he had disturbing dreams after he finally went to sleep. "You were talking in your sleep," said his mother when he came down to breakfast. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"You kept saying 'Kathy'," alleged his youngest sister.

"I didn't hear that," said his other younger sister, "But you were trying to talk Jap."

"_Japanese_, Martha. You know better," said his mother. "Were you dreaming about your mission?"

"I guess. Crazy dream."

"I made you some Postum." The Church forbid coffee and tea; Postum was an acceptable stand-in. The product had been taken out of production in 2007, but good Church wives knew the recipe, and there were other coffee substitutes, but everyone in Basalt County and in most of Idaho called them "Postum" anyway.

"Thank you," said Caldwell, drinking in the taste of early morning at home. The sun wouldn't rise above Mount King for more than an hour, but the stars were already fading above the valley.

"Mary, Martha, finish up," ordered his mother. "If you're not dressed and ready when I start the car, you're not going." The girls whined, but obeyed, as always. Caldwell started working on his oatmeal, which had cooled. He wondered why his mother had let him sleep as long as she had, though he wasn't in much danger of missing the ten o'clock flight out of Idaho Falls unless they had car trouble.

His mother was already dressed, hair done more carefully than Caldwell had seen in a long time. When the girls had been gone for maybe a minute, she put one hand on his shoulder and said, "That dream, there was more to it, wasn't there?"

"More crazy stuff."

"Sometimes dreams tell us things. Tell me. Hurry, before the girls come back down."

Caldwell Young compressed a sigh to a slight puff of breath, and said, "Japanese stuff—geisha girls, robots, samurai, soldiers from World War Two, sumo wrestlers, judo guys, baseball players...a little old lady with a silver pipe...a big stupid looking bug making noise...a little girl with a talking cat...a woman with long claws and sharp teeth...and a carhop on roller skates, except that instead of a tray, she had a scythe. A _shinigami..._"

"_She knee gaw me?_" repeated his mother.

"A death goddess," he explained. "Sort of a Japanese valkyrie. She actually said to me '_watashi wa shinigami,', _'I am a shinigami.'"

His mother was squeezing his shoulder rather hard now. Caldwell managed to shrug. "Just a dream," he said, gently removing her hand. He left his oatmeal unfinished. "Sorry I slept so late. I'll get dressed now."

There was no car trouble, and the flight was on time. Idaho Falls had never been troubled with airport overcrowding. Caldwell changed planes twice, first in Salt Lake City, and then in at SeaTac, the enormous airport halfway between Seattle and Tacoma. This flight was the very last to leave that night. Because of an earlier canceled flight, every seat was filled, and while the seat to his left was filled by one of the other missionaries, the seat on his right, a window seat, was occupied by a woman, a woman with long, black, scented hair. She had a Seattle Mariners cap pulled down over most of her face, but her lips were visible, and lipsticked. Loose-fitting jeans and a jacket obscured any further evaluation.

The airline was saving a bit of fuel by cutting down on air replacement, so the cabin smelled much like a Basalt county school bus for most of the flight. This wasn't exactly a pleasant smell, but perhaps because it was familiar, or perhaps because the long scented hair compensated, Caldwell Young soon fell asleep...

* * *

"You _want_ her, don't you?" a woman's voice hissed, purred, growled, and more, all at once, and he heard not only with his ears but with his bones.

Caldwell Young turned away from the woman with the perfumed hair. No one else was in the cabin now, except for the woman on his left. That woman had bone-white hair, and glowing red eyes, and streaks of red warpaint. "Yes, and I see you _want_ me," she said, thrusting a rude, clawed hand between his legs. She laughed, and the points of her teeth lengthened. Her tongue became forked. She smelled of gunsmoke. Another hand closed on his shoulder...

* * *

"Hey, what's with you?" It was a woman's voice, not the gunsmoke-smelling woman...

Caldwell Young sat up. The cabin was as it was before, crowded, smelly. He realized he was holding the woman's wrist. "Sorry," he said, releasing it. "Dream...sorry."

"Musta been some dream," said the woman. The ball cap had fallen into Caldwell's lap. She retrieved it. "Forget it. Just let me out, I need to use the restroom."

The woman was Asian, but her English tumbled out of her mouth in familiar ways. In fact, she sounded quite a lot like Kathy Ullman... "Of course." He made way for her as best he could manage. He was still awake when she returned, this time with her hair tied into a ponytail, and minus the smudged lipstick. She stepped nimbly over the snoring missionary on the aisle, but she seemed to have more trouble getting past Caldwell. When she finally settled into her seat, she asked, "What's your name, Caldwell or Young?"

"Oh, it's Young. Caldwell comes from one of my mom's grandfathers. You read my name tag?"

"Duh," said the woman. "I'm Heather Saotome. Ring any bells?"

"Ah, no," said Caldwell.

"I didn't think so," she said, adjusting her hair. "Maybe I will have it cut...anyway, I'm a reporter. I _almost_ got on the air on my last job." She laughed softly and cynically. "The guy at the sports desk is like a god in Seattle. He read all my questions like he was doing my interview. Well, that's how it is a lot, you know. The research people really get the stories, but the on-camera talent gets the credit. And the big bucks, of course...nice to talk to someone who isn't all about ego and money."

"Thank you," said Caldwell. "Do you mind if—"

"I'm a Catholic, Mr. Young. More or less. Where are you from? Salt Lake?"

"No, I'm from Idaho. I grew up on a farm. And you?"

"Seattle. All my life except when I was in college," said the woman.

_She's older than I thought._ Caldwell wondered why that popped into his mind. "I went to a two-year place. You would never have heard of it."

"They taught you good manners," said the woman. "You were having a nightmare before, weren't you?"

"I don't remember," Caldwell Young lied. Later he could have sworn he saw the red-eyed woman again, but when he got a clear look, it was one of the flight attendants.

* * *

The plane had left in darkness, and it arrived in darkness, flying ahead of sunrise as it crossed the north Pacific. Heather-whatever vanished from his life, presumably forever—until Caldwell Young's Mission President (or "MP" in the jargon of The Church) asked, "You were talking to a young women on the plane, weren't you?"

"I was seated next to a woman. We talked for a few minutes. But that was it."

"You made it clear you were a missionary, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," said Caldwell.

"What was her name?"

"Heather...Saotome, I think. Yes. Saotome. It's a very common Japanese name."

"Heather...," repeated the MP, doodling on the notepad on his desk, apparently unconsciously, because his eyes did not turn away from Caldwell. "You were seated next to your partner. Did he talk with Heather as well?"

"He was asleep."

"And you didn't want to wake him up," said the MP. "Of course. Well, I'm sure that was innocent enough. What about the others?"

"There weren't any others," said Caldwell. "I talked to an older woman while we waited for a restroom."

"How old?" asked the MP.

"My mother's age. At least." Caldwell wondered who told the MP he had been talking to women alone.

"You should be more careful, son," said the MP, shaking his head. "You're the most fluent Japanese speaker we've had here for quite a while. I asked for you. I'm expecting a lot from you."


	3. Chapter 2  The First April First

Caldwell Young began his real missionary work early on April 1. As they climbed up from the Shinjuku station complex and emerged on the street, his mission partner Stan McNamara stepped in a pile of slush. "Maybe this is the Lord's April Fool's joke, eh?" he said, stopping to take off one shoe to empty out the freezing water.

"Don't they have snow down in Owyhee county?" retorted Caldwell.

"Not much in April, generally speaking," said McNamara. "Funny, it was pretty nice here until last night."

Caldwell picked up a Japanese conversation from behind them.

"Miyuki-chan had a bad dream," said a girl. "I couldn't get her to sleep again for a long time."

"Why didn't you get a sleeping potion from your sisters? It's well-known that they're witches," said another girl with a lower, husky voice just as they passed. It was the taller of the two; the shorter one was carrying a sleeping child, a little girl. The big girls were wearing the same thing, high school uniforms. There were a few other girls in the same uniforms, but these two wore longer skirts.

"Because _I'm_ her mother!" snapped the smaller one, the one with the child.

"I was just joking, Torus'dottaa-san!" said the taller girl. "Do you want me to take her?"

"No, I'm okay," said the smaller one.

"Hey, Brother Young," said McNamara. "What were they talkin' about?"

"Just the weather," lied Caldwell, still staring at the much-too-young mother and her child. Something about the child...

"Like everyone else, I guess," said McNamara, replacing his shoe.

Caldwell recovered from his moment of revery and pulled out the map he'd been given. "Kabukichō is north of here...we have to cross a big street called _Yasakuni-dori_."

"Can you _read_ this stuff too?" asked McNamara. "I don't think I could read a street sign."

"You won't have to," explained Caldwell. "They don't put them up in Japan. But there's supposed to be a red gateway over the main street. I guess we can find that. See?" He pointed out a doodle on the map on the north side of _Yasakuni-dori_.

* * *

"The sergeant didn't seem to know there was a connection between us," rookie Officer Iwai Masato said to his sister-in-law, Officer Kotobuki Ran . "Is he just acting like he knows nothing?"

Iwai's sister-in-law laughed along with Officer Sawamura Seiji, who was first to recover and retorted, "He's not acting. But at least he's honest; he doesn't take bribes."

"Bribes?" said Iwai.

"You'll get lots of offers here," admitted Kotobuki.

"You mean, from yakuza?" asked Iwai.

"You won't get offers from real yakuza unless they're sure you'll accept," said Sawamura. "You'll get plenty from shop managers, drunks, guys who get into stupid fights, people with too many traffic tickets. Try not to notice some of the other officers making a few little deals here and there. Since you married into a police family, I expect you know a bit more about how things really are than the usual rookies. Although I have my doubts. Kotobuki was pretty clueless when she started here."

"Nobody who hasn't lived or worked in Kabukichō has any real understanding of this place," said Kotobuki.

Did this mean that Sawamura took bribes and his sister-in-law looked the other way? Iwai swallowed his questions and forced himself to continue to listen.

"Yeah, that's about right," said Sawamura, not seeming to notice Iwai was troubled. "Now, the girls coming up are Mizushō High girls. It's a little early..."

Kotobuki trotted ahead to meet the girls. She made a "quiet" gesture as Iwai and Sawamura came up, and gathered them close to whisper, "This is Torus'dotaa-san and her little girl Miyuki-chan, and Sakuma-san." The tall girl bowed; the other one, carrying the child, nodded her head. The child was asleep.

The girls moved on briskly after a moment, leaving clouds of vapor in the cold morning air. Iwai shivered as a gust penetrated his uniform. "Is that really the child's _mother_?" he asked once he was sure the girls were too far away to overhear.

"Yes," said Kotobuki. "Everyone in Kabukichō knows them. They call Miyuki-chan 'the little goddess' sometimes. By the way, Sakuma-san has exactly the same personal name, same characters." She traced the _kanji_ out in the air. "_Deep Snow._ Not the usual way to write the name. I know another Miyuki—she was a police officer—but she—"

"Heads up. _Gaijin_," interrupted Sawamura, indicating with a head movement two young men in coats-and-ties approaching from the Red Gate. "How's your English, Iwai?"

Masato Iwai's English was better than Sawamura's or Kotobuki's, but it turned out it did not have to be too good because one of the foreigners spoke acceptable Japanese. "We are missionaries," he explained. "We have permits." The two red-haired young men, both much taller than any of the Japanese officers, produced identification and paperwork. Sawamura took charge and said, "You cannot enter any establishment without permission here. Can you read Japanese as well?"

The taller of the _gaijin_, the one who spoke Japanese, said, "I can make out most of the signs."

"Good. Many of these places are for Japanese only. If you aren't sure, don't try to enter. Don't block traffic. Don't accost anyone. Especially, don't wait outside any of the sex shops. Our laws are different from yours; these places are licensed, and they have the same rights to operate without harassment as any other business. Do you understand?"

"We understand, Officer," said the taller one. "Our Church has been working here for many years."

"Not in Kabukichō," said Sawamura. "It is easy for strangers to get in trouble here, even if they are Japanese. You should probably go somewhere else."

"This is where The Church assigned us," said the taller one, pausing to translate to his partner. He handed _meishi_ to Sawamura and the other officers, prompting an exchange of cards. The partner followed clumsily, but the taller one had some grasp of the etiquette.

Sawamura let the missionaries go on their way, and after they had, elaborated to Kotobuki and Iwai, "I remember this bunch. They were active around my wife's high-school her last year."

Kotobuki said, "Them? They're too young."

"Their church. They're always in pairs. There are a few Japanese who follow them, but I've never met one."

"Really?" asked Iwai. "I know quite a few Christians."

"My wife tells me these people are pretty different from other Christians," said Sawamura. "But I don't know how. I can't really tell the differences between Buddhists."

"Do you think people here will be calling us about them?" asked Iwai.

Again, both Sawamura and Kotobuki laughed, and Kotobuki said, "No! If there's trouble here, mostly the yakuza handles it."

"Of course, you don't tell civilians that" said Sawamura. "Don't think it's going to be like all those yakuza movies, though. This is really a pretty safe place, even for _gaijin_."

"Really?"

"You're a little dense, Iwai-kun," said Sawamura. "Do you really think you or Kotobuki would be working here if it wasn't? Your father-in-law was the Chief of Detectives before he retired. Connect the dots. I'm probably here because of my wife's family."

"That's a lie," said Kotobuki. "Sawamura-sempai is here because he's tougher than any of the yakuza."

"Well, most of them," said Sawamura. Iwai sensed that they were not entirely joking.

"Do you think we'll really have trouble with those missionaries?" asked Iwai.

"I don't know," said Sawamura. "The ones I saw before couldn't really speak Japanese. But one of them can. That could help...or it could get him in even more trouble."

* * *

After Caldwell Young explained what the police had said to his partner, McNamara said, "Do you think those police will keep after us?"

"If we obey the law, we'll be all right," Young assured the man he expected to spend nearly every waking and sleeping minute for the next two years. By now they were arriving at another cross-street, and the top of a new building became visible, around twice as tall as any of the buildings on the opposite side of the cross-street.

"What's that?" asked McNamara, pointing at the newly-revealed building.

"It's...a high-school," said Caldwell Young, struggling with the long string of logographs: "都立水商業高等学校." "I think. Those last two mean 'school' if you put it together with the sixth one, it would be 'high-school'. But I don't know what the one between means. The second one means 'stand' but it's part of a lot of words. The third one means 'water'.

"So it could be something like 'Standing Water High School?'" asked McNamara. "Sounds like a school on an Indian reservation."

"Well, to us, I guess. That emblem on the far left...One of the girls we met was wearing a pin like it. They must go to that school."

"I didn't notice. I was looking at the little girl," said McNamara, a little wistfully. "She reminded me of my youngest sister. I used to carry her like that sometimes. She's always been hard to wake up."

"Don't get homesick already, Stan," said Young.

"Yeah, I get it," said McNamara. "That's some emblem for a school. Looks more like a bar. A bottle with a heart on it, and a cocktail glass."

"I don't know. Maybe it's supposed to be a lamp. That thing coming out of it looks sort of like a flame."

"Looks more like the tip of an old pen to me."

"Maybe it's some kind of pun," speculated Young as they crossed the street and the school became hidden again. "There was a Chinese leader whose name was the same as their words for 'small bottle.'"

"You know _Chinese_ too?" asked McNamara.

"No," said Young. "I read it in an old _Reader's Digest_. Just stuck in my head, for some—"

Caldwell Young didn't finish his thought because he fell rather spectacularly, one foot catching on a crack in the pavement, the other coming down on a patch of ice. Moreover, as his legs slid forward, they hit something, and that something fell down onto Young, pushing the rest of him down and sliding until it came to rest on his face. Young was blinded by whatever it was. He became very aware of two things: the clear laughter of a woman which had an echo to it, and the press of nylon on his face.

The press lifted, and as he opened his eyes, he saw he was looking up a skirt. White panties peeked through pantyhose. Gradually he became aware of other items in his restored field of vision, such as McNamara lifting the owner of the undergarments further off Young's face, and McNamara's face turning red and then almost purple as he released the girl—for despite the very-adult undergarments, the girl's chin was not all that far above McNamara's belt when she had risen to her full height. McNamara was sputtering apologies, or trying to. The girl said in perhaps a fifth-grade pitch: "I speak English. You speak English?"

McNamara's blush faded to a mere red, and he said, "I'm sorry. We're sorry...My friend didn't mean to..."

Caldwell Young got himself up, noticing that McNamara seemed unaware of anything but the girl. Young bowed and apologized, and the girl reciprocated, but she turned back to McNamara immediately. "Where are you from? America? Australia? England?" asked the girl.

"We're from America," said McNamara. "Do you go to school here?"

McNamara did not notice the reappearance of the three police officers. Caldwell Young did, but failed to attract the attention of either the girl or McNamara. The girl laughed, and pulled _meishi_, a calling cards, from her shoulder bag. She gave one to Young as well, but, once again, barely acknowledged Caldwell, not pretending to examine his own card, but paying close attention to McNamara's. The most dominant of the officers had to address her twice before she acknowledged him. After that, the conversation grew so fast and had so many unfamiliar expressions that Young could not really follow it all. When the police and the girl were gone, and McNamara seemed amenable, Young explained that the girl was assuring the police that she was not injured and that she had not been accosted. McNamara merely nodded. Young let him be for awhile longer, but then asked, "Is there something wrong?"

"That girl...she was a prostitute, wasn't she?" He took out her card. "Can you read this?"

Caldwell Young didn't bother to mention that he had his own card—that would have meant admitting that he hadn't really looked at it. "Well...this is her name. _Koizumi Chika_. This is a telephone number, this is an address, and this..." Young struggled a moment to remember.

"What?"

"This is the name of that school."

"Then she's a student?" asked McNamara.

"I don't think so," said Young. "The police called her '_Koizumi-sensei.'_ _Sensei_ is a word used for a teacher."

"A teacher?" said McNamara dubiously. "She doesn't look old enough to be in high-school."

"She could just be short," said Young. "Or maybe she'll change into her uniform when she gets there."

McNamara seemed to cheer up, but still didn't say much.

* * *

Officer Iwai asked, "Was that little girl really a teacher?"

"Yes, at Mizusho," said Officer Sawamura. "She's been teaching there since before I got here."

"Over 25. Perfectly _ancient_," said Officer Kotobuki archly. "You men are all _pigs_, you know."

"_Oink,_" said Sawamura. Kotobuki "accidentally" kicked his shin. Then she said, "One of the _gaijin_ didn't think she was an old granny."

"Oh, I saw that," said Sawamura. "She looked like she had found nirvana, too. Ah, love. It's blind, they say."

"It has to be for you to have a wife," said Kotobuki.

"Maybe, sometimes," said Suwahara, fixing his gaze on something. "But I'm not blind. Iwai, stop that man with the striped tie and ask him if he has his wallet. Kotoboki—"

"I'm on it," said Kotobuki, taking off with track-team speed.

* * *

The high-school was marked on the map Young and McNamara had been given, but it was just identified as a school. Caldwell Young decided to explore the other areas of the district first, hoping it would help his partner recover from his encounter with the petite "teacher" if that is what she was. There were two McDonalds in the neighborhood, and when they took a meal break at one of them Caldwell heard a woman's voice from behind him saying, "Excuse me, are you missionaries?"

He swiveled around on his stool and saw it was the woman he had met on the airplane. Caldwell hesitated to speak, but his partner didn't. "Ma'am? You speak English too?"

"Why, yes, Mr...McNamara," she said. "Or is it Mr. Stanley?"

"McNamara," said Young's partner. "This is my partner, Caldwell Young. Are you of The Church?"

"No, but I have met people who are," said the woman. She was speaking with an accent now—playing a part, Caldwell realized. And she was also pretending not to have met him before. _Older, and smarter_, Caldwell Young thought.

The reporter (if that is what she was) continued to play her part, pretending, Caldwell was sure, that she really was curious about The Church—a potential convert. McNamara went on, smoother than Caldwell expected him to be, but clueless that he was being led on. Finally he excused himself for a toilet break. As soon as he was gone, Saotome said in her normal voice, "I got you in trouble, didn't I?"

"There was a little misunderstanding," Young said. "I don't really like the way you've been leading on my partner."

"I wanted to talk to you alone and I had to have an excuse to stay."

"He'll be back."

"I know, I know. Are you going to be working here all the time? Kabukichō, I mean."

"I don't know," said Caldwell. "Why are you here? Are you working on a story?"

"Actually this is a free day for me," she said. "But I _am_ a reporter, even on my days off."

"Do you know this place?"

"This is my first visit ever," she said. "But I've done research. Why are you using those little printout maps, anyway? Don't you know how to use Google Maps on your phone?"

"Our phones aren't that fancy," said Caldwell Young.

"You mean, they gave you phones?"

"Yes. One for me and my partner."

"That's...interesting." Saotome paused for a moment, and then dug into her purse. "Use this," she said, handing him her cellphone.

"What? I can't—"

"Take it. It's last year's model; I'm about to upgrade anyway...Uh, oh, here comes Mr. McNamara already." Saotome switched back to her phony accent to talk to McNamara for a few more minutes, then excused herself. "Sorry. Must go now," she said, bowing. "Sorry."

That would have been the end of the encounter if McNamara hadn't called out, "Wait, please! Can you read something for me?" He brought out the card the "teacher" had given him and gave it to Saotome. "What is the name of this school? It's the tall building over there, I think."

Saotome's performance was interrupted for a second; her face took on an American, skeptical look. But the lapse was short, and she answered with the "proper" accent. "How you say...this is _Toritsu Mizushōgyō Kōtōgakkō. _Famous school. Have good baseball team." McNamara wanted more, and Saotome started writing out the _kanji_ on the back of the map lying on the counter—in the process, squeezing quite close to Young. "These are _toritsu,_ which means it belong to Tokyo metropolitan government. Never used anywhere else but Tokyo. This is _mizu_, water. These two are _shōgyō_, and when you put them together with _kōtōgakkō_, it means 'occupational high school.'"

"'Tokyo Water Occupational High School?'" McNamara slowly assembled.

"_Hai._ Maybe better 'Tokyo Water Trade School'"

"Water Trade School?" repeated McNamara. "I don't understand."

"_Mizushōbai_ or _Mizushō_ mean...how you say..._entertainment_. Cabaret, night club, bar. And _sōpurando._"

"_Sōpurando?_"

"Soap-rand. Used to be _turuku,_ Turkish bath, but ambassador ask to change name. For bath with prostitute."

"Does it say that here?" asked McNamara, voice cracking, returning to the teacher's card.

"No, it doesn't," said Saotome. "This card says that Koizumi Chika is a Sociology teacher. I really have to go now." Saotome had used her normal voice, but McNamara hadn't noticed. McNamara just said, "Thank you," without looking up. Saotome did glance back as she left, directly and significantly at Caldwell Young, indicating McNamara with a tiny movement of her eyes. Then she was gone.

"Maybe we should head back," said Young to his partner. As they left, there was an awkward moment as a woman with a child in a stroller blocked the door. The woman was bent over her child, cleaning the face of the toddler. When the mother stood up, Young was startled to see that she was an albino with deep pink eyes and bone-white hair, though the child was normal. The mother smiled at him in a very peculiar way, before she pushed the stroller through the door and disappeared into the apparently permanent throng beyond the the golden arches.

* * *

"Thank you for giving me credit for the arrest," said Officer Iwai to his sister-in-law as they rode home on their last train. "But I didn't deserve it."

"Sawamura-sempai gave you the credit," she said. "I just backed him up."

"But I feel—"

"You just don't know what to look for yet, Masato-san" said Ran, slipping out of work-language into the more intimate terms of family and long-time friends.

"Are the Nigerians really all like the sergeant was saying?" asked Masato.

"They were Brazilians, Masato-san," said Ran. "All black people are Nigerians to this sergeant. It is not wise to correct him when you don't have to."

"I thought Brazilians were white people."

"Some are. But many are black. Anyway, Sawamura-sempai did the same for me when I started here. He's really a nice person." Ran yawned. "I hate these rotating shifts."

"It's only fair," said Masato.

"Yes, but I still hate them."

"You didn't have to become a police officer, you know," said Masato. His sister-in-law kicked his shins.


	4. Chapter 3 Koizumi Sensei

Young and McNamara next met the petite teacher late on their third day in Kabukichō. In fact, she found them, appearing unexpectedly behind them. McNamara recognized her voice instantly; Young did not, and did not actually spot her until he looked down 2.3 seconds later. The evening was still quite warm, and she was wearing less: roomy shorts over bare legs and a knit shirt. Instead of being stuffed into a cap, her hair hung down in two vary long ponytails tied with two pairs of large, bright red plastic balls. "Hello, McNamara-san! Hello..." She paused to read Young's tag. "...Young-san."

McNamara practically glowed in Caldwell Young's perception. "Hello, Miss Chika."

The girl blushed. "That is my personal name, McNamara-san. We put the family name first in Japan. I am Koizumi Chika—you would say Chika Koizumi."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said McNamara. "I know it is not polite here to use first names. Uh, I mean..."

"It is not important," said the diminutive teacher. "Have you been out here all day?"

"Since about ten in the morning," said McNamara. "Ummm..." McNamara showed dismay on his face as a man came up to stand beside Koizumi.

"Oh, this is my _sempai_, Tanabe-sensei." Koizumi switched to Japanese to introduce McNamara and Young to the man, leading to the inevitable exchange of _meishi_. "Tanabe-sensei is also a teacher at Mizushō."

"That's what you call your school?" asked Young.

The man asked for Koizumi to interpret, then responded, "Short word, yes? Excuse me, English not good. My wife speak good."

Now McNamara's face fell about as deep as Hell's Canyon. Caldwell Young switched to Japanese to ask, "Then you are husband and wife?"

"No, we are just friends," said the man. "My wife is also a teacher at Mizushō."

"And she is also my good friend," said Koizumi, who was now showing concern. Switching back to English she turned back to McNamara and said, in English, "I am not married, McNamara-san. Are you married?"

"Uhhh...No, I'm not married."

"Maybe you come to Japan to find a wife?" Koizumi giggled. The other teacher excused himself; neither McNamara nor Koizumi seemed to take notice.

On impulse, Young slipped away and caught up with the man. "Excuse me...can I have a minute or two?"

The teacher stopped, smiled, and said, "You speak good Japanese."

"Thank you. Actually, I just want to know if my friend...and your friend...?"

"Koizumi-sensei is not a child, even if she looks like one. Or are you asking if she is pure?"

"I did not mean to imply she was not," said Young. "My friend is not very sophisticated. And he is only twenty."

"Really? He looks older. That beard...did he forget to shave?"

"No, he's grown that since this morning. He usually shaves twice a day, but he forgot his razor today...I must tell you," said Caldwell Young—and then he hesitated.

"You must tell me what?"

Caldwell Young was now looking at McNamara and the girl, and he chose different words. "We take our faith very seriously. It would be good if you tell your friend that if she becomes more than a friend to McNamara-san, she will have to join The Church. And there is another thing...we really aren't supposed to date while we are on our mission."

"Are you asking me to break them apart? You should talk to your own friend."

"I will talk to him," said Caldwell Young. "But will he listen?"

The man smiled wistfully, perhaps remembering something. "She may not listen, either. Are you a married man?"

"No. Very few of us on missions like this are married—and those that are can't live as man-and-wife while on their mission."

"Then you are like monks and nuns?"

"We don't have those in The Church," said Young. "But I suppose one could say that for a mission, it is a little like that."

The male teacher took out his phone. "Another message from my wife...I must go now."

* * *

Koizumi's friend Tanabe Keisuke told his wife when he got home and their son was (at last) asleep, "Koizumi met that foreigner again. They were still talking when I left them."

"What is he really like?" asked Akane.

"He is very tall," said Keisuke. "But he's only twenty."

"Do you think he's really taken with her? Or is he just trying to get her to come to his church?"

"He looked like a man in love to me," said Tanabe. "His friend is worried about him."

"His friend?" asked Akane.

"His partner," said Keisuke.

"Oh, I remember," said Akane. "Koizumi-sensei told me they always have partners. What exactly was he worried about?"

Keisuke said, "From what I understand, there's a rule against having sex while they're here. But I think the partner was more worried that his friend would marry someone his people would not accept."

"Because she is not a white person?" asked Akane.

"I don't think the partner was that way, but maybe his people are. Or it could be that he doesn't think Koizumi will ever join their church. Do you think Koizumi-sensei is thinking of marrying this man? Already?"

"You sound jealous," accused Akane, deflecting the question.

* * *

The Mission President called Caldwell Young into his office the following morning. Young feared it was about his partner, or about Saotome—just as he stepped inside, he remembered he still had her cell in his coat pocket. But the MP surprised him by beginning, "My wife stopped by the computer room last night."

"I didn't know that," said Young. "I was doing some research—"

The MP held up both hands. "I'm not _accusing_ you of anything, son. She noticed that you were on the site of that high school."

"Yes, I was," said Young. "I was wondering...can you tell me why no one has told us about this school before?"

"It is a sensitive matter," said the MP. "You know by now that Kabukichō is not, as a whole, very welcoming to our missionaries. But if you—any of you—do anything to publicize this back home, it will grow much less welcoming—not just in Kabukichō, but in all of Japan."

"I think I understand," said Caldwell Young. "But what about the others?"

"None of the other teams knows about the real nature of that school," said the MP. "And there won't be any other teams working there from now on. I hoped we might be allowed a greater presence, but..." The MP trailed off, and instead of finishing his thought, he went on to something else. "You might wonder how you had the bad luck to get a partner who is hopeless with the language. I assigned Mr. McNamara to you just for that reason. No one of the others is even close to you in comprehension, so I put you with the one I am most sure does not know enough to get into trouble."

Caldwell Young said, "Are you saying I know too much to stay out of trouble?"

The MP laughed. "You might put it that way. But you're also bright. You should be able to think your way out of trouble, most of the time. Now, what do you think about that school?"

Caldwell Young said, "I think it's appalling. They actually train young girls to be prostitutes, if I understand it correctly."

The Mission President said, "You do. Not all the girls, but a great number of them. It's not the only school like that; there are others in other parts of the country. One in Sapporo, one down south in Hokkaido, one in Kyoto...there is talk there might be another in Okinawa once the American bases are handed over."

"Good Lord!" said Caldwell Young.

"I'm sure the Good Lord is already informed," said the MP, making a wry face. "How much does your partner know?"

"He knows about teaching prostitutes," said Young. "One of the, ah, locals explained it to us on the first day. She spoke English, so Mr. McNamara...I haven't told him much more. Just enough to answer his questions, and he hasn't asked too many."

"I thought it might be something like that," said the Mission President. "One other thing: stay away from the Buddhist temple. The priest there complains to the police whenever he spots us there—not just in the temple but in sight of it."

Caldwell Young said, "I remember you told us to avoid it in the orientation."

His MP said, "Well, it bears repeating. He may have political connections. He can make quite a lot of trouble."

Caldwell Young said, "Then I'll be even more careful."

"Persevere, Mr. Young. Persevere," said the MP, offering his hand. Caldwell Young told McNamara that they should avoid that temple, and nothing more.

* * *

**Hell's Canyon** is an actual place in Idaho, a stretch of the Snake River Gorge which is deeper than any part of the Grand Canyon.


	5. Chapter 4 Hellfire

Missionaries of The Church aren't supposed to just socialize; they are there to witness the Faith. As we have already demonstrated, romance was right out. Still, when Koizumi the teacher kept encountering his mission partner Stan McNamara on the streets of Kabukichō nearly every day—and sometimes more than once in a day—Caldwell Young just couldn't bring himself to interfere. The two of them were so _innocent_ when they were together that Young thought they would fit right into a Church picnic. _It was just puppy love,_ Young kept telling himself.

One evening when they were staying later than usual, Young excused himself for a toilet break to leave Stan and his diminutive teacher lady alone for awhile. He actually did need to take care of personal plumbing matters, so it wasn't an out-and-out lie. But he took an indirect route back.

After a month, Young was beginning to pick up on the dialect(s) of the place, but he knew he knew only a small part of it. There were so many tiny alleys, some of them spaces between buildings so tight it could be difficult for one person to get by another.

From one of those alleys as he passed it, he heard very crude language—even yakuza did not use much of that. He reversed himself, and peered into the alley. He could see three people there. One of them was a girl wearing nothing but panties. The other two were men; he couldn't make them out too well, but he could hear them well enough when he stepped into the alley—the walls seemed to channel the sound to him, and shut out most of the street noise.

One of the men growled, "Who are you? A big-shit hero?"

"Let go of the girl. Now," said the other. All that Caldwell Young could see of the somewhat more polite man was the top of his head; he was taller than the leather-jacketed tough holding the half-naked girl's arm. He used crude, direct forms, though, and clearly there was a threat behind his words.

"Did you bring an army with you?" asked the first tough. Caldwell Young saw movement behind the trio, and tried to call out in warning—but found he could not speak.

"You're out of your league here, Young-san," husked a voice close to his ear. "Mind her while I take care of this." A very female body pressed against him, squeezing between Young and one of the walls. Young saw it was the albino, and that she had parked the stroller with her child right behind him. The toddler glanced up at Young, yawned, and said, "Mommy burn."

"Try some Hellfire," the voice of the albino sounded—in many voices, to Caldwell...the voice of the demon of his dreams. The crack of lightning sounded, and a flash lit up the alley far beyond day-bright. Young turned back to see the half-naked girl still held by one large paw of a hand—which was now attached only to a short bit of smoking arm. It fell away.

The child giggled, and repeated, "Mommy burn!"

The man who had confronted the owner of the hand slipped off his shirt to give to the half-naked girl. Meanwhile, another child appeared, and picked up the smoking remnant. "Smells like ham," the child said.

"Miyuki-chan! Put that thing down!" cried a young-but-somehow-very-motherlike voice. Another familiar voice, from somewhere...

The albino demon said, "You didn't even kill yours."

"I didn't try to," said the young mother—the same young mother Caldwell Young had encountered briefly but memorably on his first day in Kabukichō.

"I got one of them myself!" said the child dropping the severed limb.

"Good for you, Miyuki-chan," said the only man still standing, "But there were only three of them."

"You're only a mortal," said the high-school student/mother. She was wearing the uniform. Why? Why was she here so late? _Why does she know a demon! _She used some kind of gadget, and then bent down to one of the prone bodies. "See?" she said, coming up with an automatic pistol.

"Listen to Skuld," said the albino demon, picking up the severed limb. She bit off the thumb and swallowed it. "Waste not, want not, _neh_?"

The little mother began talking to the rescued girl in a language Young did not even recognize. Meanwhile her child came up along with the demon, who tore a piece off the severed gave it to her toddler. The toddler showed untoddler-like teeth, and tucked into the human flesh with gusto. Meanwhile the older child looked up at Young and asked, "Who are you?"

"He's a friend of mine," said the demon. "His name is Caldwell Young, and he's from America."

"Why doesn't he talk?" said the older child.

"Oh. Sorry. My bad," said the demon. She made a gesture in the air, leaving a strange glowing symbol for just a moment. "You can talk now, Young-san."

"What...what are you! How do you know me?" asked Young.

"How impolite. You didn't even ask my name. It's Mara, by the way. And this little one is Hiyo. She's too busy chewing to tell you herself. Another time, Young-san." The demon mother wheeled the demon toddler away, and disappeared into the street—which didn't seem to be taking any notice.

"I'm Kawanishi Miyuki," said the remaining little girl in Japanese. "Did you sell your soul to Mara-san?"

"Sell my soul? No!" sputtered Caldwell Young. "Why would you think such a thing?"

"That's what Mara-san is supposed to do. Buy people's souls," said the child. "Don't you know anything about demons?"

"I guess I don't know enough," said Caldwell Young.

"I saw you were gonna help," said Miyuki. "You're a good person. Why are you out on the street so much?"

"Well, I'm on a mission for The Church," explained Young patiently. "You've seen me on the street? I only remember seeing you once before. How did you know?"

Miyuki said, "Mommy takes lots of pictures of Koizumi-sensei and the guy she likes. You're in a lot of them."

Caldwell Young said, "But you didn't know my name before?"

Miyuki said, "No. Mommy doesn't know I looked at them. What's his name?"

"It's McNamara—Stanley McNamara," said Caldwell Young. He realized he may have said too much, but this was only a child...a child who knew _demons._ "How is it you know...ah...Mara-san?"

Miyuki said, "Mara-san is friends with Auntie Urd and Auntie Belldandy. And I play with Hiyo-chan a lot, even if she's still little. And Mara-san works for Grandma Hild."

"Grandma Hild?" asked Caldwell Young.

Miyuki said, "She's the head demon. She's Auntie Urd's mom. Where in America are you from?" Miyuki-chan had endless questions, and in answering them, Caldwell Young lost track of time and, almost, the fact he was talking literally with a familiar of demons.

Finally Miyuki's mother reappeared to take her in hand. "Come on. Time to go home, and time you were in bed," she said to the child. To Young she said, "I'm sorry, I was taking care of the girl we helped."

"What was going on?" asked Caldwell Young.

The student-mother-demon-familiar regarded him for a moment. "Would you please forget what you saw here?"

Caldwell Young said, "I don't think I can do that."

"There are..." Skuld trailed off, then said, "Never mind. Just don't tell the police or anyone. The girl is here illegally. If the police get involved, she'll be sent back to Burma, and she'll just get sold again."

When Caldwell Young returned to his partner, Stan was still talking to his lady friend, unaware of his approach, and probably everything else, including an incredibly beautiful pair of Nordic-looking women standing not two feet away. The women left before Young reached McNamara—in fact, they vanished in the few moments his vision was blocked by a passing panel truck. It unsettled him for a moment—but he had seen such incredible things, he put the incident out of mind before he finally broke Stan out of his world-made-just-for-two.

* * *

On the last day of his seventh week of witnessing in Kabukichō Caldwell Young met the reporter again. She caught him when he was separated from McNamara—again, left with Koizumi-sensei. "Do you still have the phone I gave you?" she asked.

Caldwell Young said, "Yes. But I don't have it with me."

"I see...maybe," said Heather Saotome. "Seen any of my stuff?"

Caldwell Young said, "No. We don't watch television on mission."

"Not even the news?" asked the reporter. "Well, I guess God takes precedence, right?"

"We don't take His Name lightly," said Caldwell. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't while you're speaking to me."

"No offense meant," said Saotome. "Well, have you made any conversions?"

Caldwell Young said, "No."

"I'm sorry. If anyone could make a Christian out of someone from the streets of this place, it should be you."

Caldwell Young said, "You count me as a Christian, then?"

"Yes. Shouldn't I?"

Caldwell Young said, "Not all people who call themselves Christians are willing to include members of The Church as their brethren. Including your popes, Ms. Saotome."

"Well, as I said before, I was raised Catholic, but I'm not too serious about it. Listen," Saotome said, shifting the conversation, "I know this is a very long shot, but have you by any chance made the acquaintance of the president of the student council at Mizushō High?"

"The police keep reminding us we cannot solicit minors," said Caldwell Young. "Anyway, who is he? I don't have the faintest idea."

"It's a she. Her name is Torusudottaa Sukurudo, or Skuld Torsdottir. She should be easy to recognize; she almost always has her kid with her. A little girl, five years old now, Miyuki."

Caldwell Young stumbled a bit. "_Miyuki_, you said?"

"Yes, Miyuki. You _have_ met them, haven't you?" Saotome's interest swelled so obviously, Caldwell could practically feel it digging into his person to unearth more of the lode she had found.

"I've talked to Miyuki," said Young.

"When?" asked Heather Saotome.

"Um...a few weeks ago. I sort of minded her while her mother was busy. But I had no idea her mother was the student body president. That must be why she was so late leaving school."

"So it was at night?" prompted Heather Saotome.

"After dark. Not _terribly_ late," said Young. The reporter—she was a reporter, he had to remember that.

"What did she tell you?"

Caldwell Young shrugged. "How much does a Kindergartner know? Mostly she asked me questions."

"About what?" asked Heather Saotome.

"About _everything..._" he laughed, and it was not acting. "She wanted to know where I lived, and if I had a girlfriend, and about living on a farm in Idaho, and if there were wild Indians around."

"Really?"

Caldwell Young said, "Really. Anyway, her mother finished her business, and that was it. I didn't even get her mother's whole name."

Heather Saotome asked, "Is that the only time you've met Sukurudo?"

Caldwell Young said, "Yes. Once before I saw her and Miyuki, but it was just in passing. My first day here, in fact. You've never interviewed her mother?"

"No. No, I've never met Miyuki's mother," said Saotome, conveying a lot of disappointment.

Caldwell Young said, "But you've met Miyuki-chan, haven't you?"

"Yes," said Saotome. "On my last job. Her father was in the Tacoma Double-A team then. She was there with her grandmother. But her mother wasn't with her."

"She must have made quite an impression on you," said Caldwell Young. "But why would her _mother_ be news back home?"

Heather Saotome said, "Well, for one thing, Miyuki's father is playing for the Mariners now. You don't follow baseball, do you?"

"No, I'm not much for team sports," said Young. "Even if I was, I wouldn't be following it on my mission."

"Well...that interview got me fired," said Heather Saotome.

"Fired?"

Saotome explained, "The sports guy at my old station is an asshole, but he's got all kinds of pull. He got mad when I..."

"When you what?" asked Caldwell Young.

Heather Saotome said, "He was too drunk to do the interview himself, so I went to interview Sentaro Kawanishi, he's the best shortstop I've ever seen play the game. Miyuki's father. That's where I met Miyuki-chan. Anyway, I looked up Mizushō High—Kawanishi dropped out when Tacoma signed him—and I found out what it was. Caldwell, did Miyuki tell you..."

"Tell me what?"

"So she didn't..." said the reporter. But then Saotome said, "You're going to find out soon enough. Her mother's in the _fūzoku_ program. Since she's a senior, she's already done work as a prostitute during the break between her second and third year. It's part of the program. It's a trade school, you know. As a matter of fact, that break was going on when I interviewed Kawanishi. He wouldn't say much about Miyuki's mother. So I started digging. And I dug myself right out of a job."

"So your sports guy was protecting Miyuki's father?" said Caldwell Young.

Heather Saotome said, "A shortstop who can hit should not be a deadbeat dad. Well, he's not that, but I can see he's not down with what his girl's choice of profession."

Caldwell Young exclaimed, "Why on earth doesn't she drop out and go to America? I do know how much baseball players make, even bad ones."

"Why indeed? Enquiring minds want to know," said the reporter. "What do you think? Her mother must have left you with _some_ kind of impression."

How was he going to respond? "Well, I'd say... she's _formidable."_

"Formidable? That's an interesting word to use," mused Heather Saotome. "Can you expand on that?"

"Not really," said Caldwell Young. "I can see why she would be a student body president. Maybe...it's becoming a mother so young. That's everything to her, being Miyuki-chan's mother."

"I see," said Heather Saotome. "Not much chance she'll give up custody voluntarily."

"Not a chance in Hell," said Caldwell Young before he realized.

"I agree," husked a now-familiar voice. The demon mother was right behind Caldwell. She pushed the stroller so it brushed against Saotome's leg. Saotome apologized—she seemed unaware that there was a connection between the demon and Caldwell Young. _Of course. Mara is a _demon, _after all,_ thought Young. The demon actually exchanged _meishi_ with Saotome before they parted.

When he returned to Stan McNamara, Koizumi-sensei was gone. "What took you so long?" Stan asked.

"Touch of diarrhea," lied Caldwell Young. "In fact—" He ran off again, the lie become truth.

* * *

Back in the dormitory, Caldwell Young woke up from a dream the demon invaded, or maybe just a dream about the demon, and went to the toilet. As he was washing up all alone in the facility, Skuld Torsdottir poured out of the spigot he was using. She was only about nine inches tall, but still too large to have fit through the pipes by any laws of physics Caldwell understood. "I'm still dreaming, aren't I?"

"No, you're awake, Mr. Young," said the miniaturized teenager. "I sent this part of me. The rest of me is finishing my homework."

"Homework?"

"A paper for Japanese History. We learn other things besides how to work in a soapland, Mr. Young, whatever you may have heard."

"O—K," said Caldwell, drawing a long, deep breath. "Well, what does this part of you want with me now?"

The little Skuld said, "You were talking with that reporter again. You aren't thinking of telling her what happened, are you?"

Caldwell Young said, "No—and how do you know who I was talking to?"

The little Skuld said, "I was there when she met Miyuki. I've been watching for her ever since."

"What? Heather said you were here in Japan!"

The little Skuld said, "I sent a little me with Miyuki. I always do. But that time I hid from Sentaro. I didn't want to remind him of..."

"Of what the rest of you was doing then, I suppose," said Caldwell Young.

"So you think I'm dirty because of what I did?" accused the sprite. She sprouted wings, and then the wings formed a little angel, blushing and looking accusingly at Caldwell Young.

"I don't think any woman should have to do that," said Caldwell Young. "I can see you might have had your reasons, but now Mr. Kawanishi can support you and your child. Why don't you go to him and marry him? You don't have to live that kind of life now. You don't need the money."

The friend of demons still showed some anger, but the little angel had softened toward him. Skuld said to him, "Belldandy has told me that I should not say anything bad about your faith. But if you believe sex workers will be punished in the next life for what they do for a living in this life, you are mistaken. That is not how it is."

Caldwell Young retorted, "How can you say that? Have you forgotten that girl from Burma? Sold by her family?"

The little Skuld said, "Slavery is evil. But what about women who choose sex work? No one at Mizushō is forced."

"Yes, including you," said Caldwell Young "From what Ms. Saotome has told me, you are losing Miyuki's father. So why in God's name are you going on with this?"

"For all the others in the program," said Skuld, switching to Japanese "When I applied to the school, I promised Akane-sensei that I would really go on to work. There are only so many places in the classes. Every wasted one means someone will enter the sex trade without training. And it could mean room for more sex slaves like the girl from Burma you saw. Matsuura-dono doesn't stand for that, but others keep trying to bring them into Kabukichō."

"Lord Matsuura?" responded Caldwell in English.

"The _oyabun_. You haven't heard of her?"

Caldwell Young said, "No, I haven't. A woman?"

Both the nine-inch Skuld and her angel shook their heads. "You don't know much, do you?"

* * *

The Mission President's wife had hardly made an impression on Caldwell Young when she asked to see him. Caldwell was very tired, unsure what had been dreams and what hadn't. He followed along without thinking until he was alone with her in the Mission President's office. The soft click of her throwing the red switch that turned on the "don't interrupt" light outside the door was loud enough to bring Young to a fully wakeful state. The MP's wife began even before she sat down by saying, "Mike hasn't said anything to me. Maybe he hasn't noticed, or maybe he just doesn't want to talk to me about it yet."

"Noticed what, Sister Eunice?" said Caldwell Young.

The MP's wife made a sour face for a moment. "Please don't call me _that. _I've always hated it. Just 'Sister' will do. Or 'Hattie" when we're not with the others. My maiden name is 'Hatton.' 'Hattie' is what I've gone by most of my life when I haven't been 'Mrs. Kolberg.'"

"Well...'Sister'? I don't want to develop bad habits."

"Bad habits, yes," said the MP's wife. "It's easy to slip into a bad habit. Or perhaps an inappropriate habit that isn't bad of itself but shouldn't be indulged in at certain times. Such as on one's mission." She smiled, very mother like, the smile of a mother who has something on a child who thought they had gotten away with some mischief."

"Um...what exactly are you talking about, Sister?" Caldwell Young said carefully.

"It's pretty obvious to me that your partner Brother McNamara is lovestruck. If his eyes were any more sheepish I would fetch my shears. Who is the girl?"

Caldwell considered lying for about half a second before he spoke: "Her name is Chika Koizumi. She's a school teacher."

"A school teacher? How did he meet her?" asked Mrs. Kolberg.

"She works in Kabukichō," answered Caldwell. "They keep running into each other. It's a really small place, you know."

"Yes, it _is_ quite a small neighborhood," said Mrs. Kolberg. "Do you know which school she works at?"

"The high school there," said Caldwell.

"The high school," repeated Mrs. Kolberg, and again: "The high school. What exactly does she teach, do you know?"

"Sociology," said Caldwell. "You know about the high school?"

"Did you think I spent all my spare time making casseroles and green jello?" said Mrs. Kolberg. "I've been working here just as long as Mike. We met when he was on his mission. And that is why I—and _maybe_ my husband—are willing to bend the rules a bit when one of our young men or young women fall in love on their own missions. It's one of the Lord's greatest blessings—if it is the true moment that souls that were meant to join one with the other discover each other in this world."

Mrs. Kolberg was a woman of some size, and she absently popped a chocolate from the bowl on the desk in her mouth. Then she pushed the bowl a bit toward Caldwell Young as she chewed it. Caldwell was about to take one for himself when he thought that maybe her little snack wasn't taken absently as it had first seemed. "No, thank you, Sister."

Mrs. Kolberg finished and cleaned the traces of the confection from her face with a tissue. "Tummy still upset?"

"Not really," responded Caldwell, wondering if—but his question was answered.

"Mike told me he saw you going to and from the lavatory a lot. I know you ate at one of the MacDonalds yesterday from the receipts. I've never heard of food poisoning in one of those in Tokyo. Your partner isn't sick. What do you think could be causing your problems, Caldwell? Is that what you go by?"

"Yes," said Caldwell Young.

"Well?"

"I don't know," said Caldwell Young.

Mrs. Kolberg said, "I thought maybe it might be something on your mind for too long. How long has Brother McNamara been seeing this woman?"

"We bumped into her on our first day," admitted Caldwell. The MP's wife was sharp, maybe even sharper than the Mission President himself. That was something he was familiar with. Maybe the smarter women of Basalt County were better at hiding their true natures from their husbands, or at least from most of the men. The Church taught, or at least the elders taught, that a good wife should defer to her husband. Caldwell Young knew a good many husbands, even in the Church, whom he thought had been blessed by the Lord to have wives who could, for the most part, keep them out of trouble. In a county where he literally knew _everyone_, and _everyone_ knew _everyone,_ maybe people who were not hopeless idiots had to learn to hide things withing themselves much better than city folk who might go for days without encountering someone who really knew them.

Mrs Kolberg had been quiet for long enough for Caldwell to think out that last line of thought. She shook her head, and said, "If I keep you any longer, even Brother McNamara might get suspicious. For now, just tell him I wanted to find out if you knew my daughter. She married an Idaho man."

"Where do they live?"

"Moscow. They both teach at the university."

"That's way up north," said Caldwell Young. "Where are you from, Sister?"

"I'm from New Zealand, son," said Mrs. Kolberg, laughing. "I guess I really do sound just like a Yank now."

* * *

Several times on the long, long day that followed his morning meeting with Mrs. Kolberg Caldwell Young thought he heard the demon's voice. It was always when he was just on the verge of nodding off. He dismissed it each time as unreal, but each time took longer, until finally Stan McNamara said to him, "What is it? Did you see a _ghost_ or something?"

"Ghost?" Hearing his partner say something like that was as amazing to Caldwell as hearing a cat apologize—especially since Stan had been talking with Koizumi-sensei. "Why would you think that?"

Koizumi said, "You looked really frightened, Young-san."

"I did?" Caldwell struggled to compose himself. "It's nothing. I just had a bad night. I'm falling asleep on my feet."

"Then you had a _mabaroshi, _a...how you say, a vision?"

"I thought I heard someone," said Caldwell. "I guess I was beginning to dream. Maybe."

"Our word for that is _kenjō,_" said Koizumi. "You thought you heard someone you know? Someone who is dead?"

"No, someone...You believe in ghosts?" he countered.

"I'm not sure. I'm not scared of ghosts, like Torusudottaa-san is. But I've never met a ghost. Well, not what I really believed was a ghost. My mother believes in them...then if this person isn't dead, why would he scare you?"

"It's a woman. A _scary_ woman."

"When did you meet any scary women, Brother Young?" asked McNamara, laughing.

"She scared me," said Caldwell, and skating on the thinnest of ice above a lie, he added, "You wouldn't know her, either of you." _Not as she truly is, anyway._

And then he heard the demon speak clear as an elder in a silent church invoking the most secret, most sacred rite of The True Church on the holiest of holidays, "Careful, careful, Young-san. Remember what the last lie brought you."

Before he could stop himself, Caldwell Young spoke back to the demon: "Then you made my bowels run?"

"No. Your lie did. You have too much honesty. You should unlearn some of it, at least enough to keep from shitting your pants when you have to lie...Don't worry, by the way, they can't see or hear me and they won't notice when you talk to me. I've just been teasing them until now, but they won't know unless you decide to tell them—and much luck making them believe you if you do."

Caldwell Young asked the invisible speaker, "Why are you doing this? I didn't summon you or anything."

The demons voice said, "Oh, but you did. You did, Caldwell Young, before you left ever left Idaho. I can count the pure souls that desired my help as much on one hand with my thumb left over."

"You were in my dreams then? You were! You're a _succubus_, aren't you!"

"You think I'm a _succubus!_," retorted the demon, sounding amused and insulted at the same time. "If I was, I'd be the number-one ranked, but I'm no mere succubus. I am what some of you mortals call a _malebrachne,_ and I am a demon of the first class. Call me a 'succubus' again and I just might make you immune their services them, and mortal women's as well. No magic will be required."

"I didn't call you. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. It's a lie, no matter how many times you repeat it."

"I promise you, it is the truth. Demons never break promises, you should know. Perhaps mortals do not always fully understand the promises they extract, but we do everything in our power to fulfill them. And I did promise to explain it to you before...It was when you realized that girl was in love with the teacher. You wanted to know how it could be, that the man you yourself thought so much of could do what he was doing—if he was doing it. You were never sure. The girl never told you—she would have lied, of course, if you asked her, but you never did."

Caldwell Young tasted ashes in his throat. "You knew that..." He laughed. "Of course. You're a demon, after souls. I won't sell you mine, not even to have...you couldn't do it anyway, could you? Demons can have nothing to do with love."

"They can't? How much do you really know about the nature of gods and demons, Caldwell Young? You've seen me with Hiyo-chan often enough now. Don't you think I love her as much as any mother can love her child? You don't even know if your own church believes in _succubi_. It's a word the Roman Catholics use. How do you even know that? It's your church that's supposed to be the one true church, isn't it?"

Caldwell Young could look on himself from as if he was outside himself at this point, and considered that he had gone mad, that it was all delusion. And yet there was no inconsistency in the reality the demon was a part of. There still were Stan and his teacher lady, talking with each other again, unaware of him or anyone else again. People moved constantly past them, sometimes with words of apology, sometimes not, but aware enough to avoid bumping into any of them. He looked into the store window a foot away from his face. The window was a fair mirror in the afternoon sunlight, and he saw his own face with McNamara's and Koizumi's, and the crowd milling around them...and sitting on his shoulder, the demon, just tall enough so her head was placed perfectly to speak in his ear.

The tiny demon said, "Sukurudo-chan isn't the only one who can make more of herself. I always keep most of me with Hiyo-chan, but I can make more of me. I will admit, Urd-san can make even more, but I can still make as many as I need. I've taken more than a dozen souls since you started working here, without leaving Hiyo-chan alone for a moment. Sukurudo-chan can't really manage more than one duplicate for more than a few minutes. She'll be more powerful than Urd-san when she really grows up, but I'll never tell her that—and neither will you, Young-san. That's the order of _Daimakaichō _Hild herself. And of her father as well."

"Her father is alive?"

"Why, _yes_, Brother Young," answered the demon in a mocking manner.

"I'm afraid I miss the joke—Mara. You are Mara? Do I have that right?"

"Or Marller, or other names. Mara suits me very nicely. You could never pronounce my true name; you don't possess enough dimensions."

"I won't give up my soul. Please go away."

"No. I'm not after your soul, anyway. I never take a soul from anyone who doesn't give it freely. None of us do. You just interest me, Caldwell Young, as much as any mortal can. Do you really want to know the truth about that teacher and the girl you love so much?"

"Not for my soul I don't."

"Oh, get off it! You're not Faust! You fell in love with a girl who got interested in someone else. You'd be a cliché if your love wasn't so strong and so pure. You're like all the sugary mortal love songs brought to life, Caldwell Young. You even think that girl is a beauty. The teacher doesn't even think that."

"He doesn't? Then why did he...did he?"

"He's in love with seducing young girls. It's why he teaches. It's just an accident that he's good at his job."

"Did he sell his soul for that?" asked Caldwell.

"Not to one of us," said the demon, yawning. "Oh, he's lost his soul, odds are. Heavy odds. Each time he breaks another girl's heart and finds a way to make himself not care—no, that's not true any more. Now he's telling himself it's a _learning experience_ for his girls."

"Does he actually—"

"You know he does, boy. Grow up. Did you think all the villains were in places like Kabukichō? It's not really the sex; it's the whole experience. He lives the same year over and over, thinking he's making it a little better each time—well, most times. It makes him feel immortal, always young. He didn't actually get sex with a girl until he was student teaching. That's his ideal, living the same year, over and over and over. That's how he thinks he wants to spend eternity—and he probably will."

"Eternity? Then—"

"I told you a little too much, maybe. I hope it will make you feel a little better knowing that man is well on his way to Hell—whatever 'Hell' really is."

"You're not sure he'll be going to Hell?"

"I'm a _demon_, not one of the Fates. I shouldn't have to do _all_ your work for you. Do some research, for Hell's sake!" The little demon cackled with laughter, and disappeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke.


	6. Chapter 5 Deep Snow

The demon was back on Caldwell Young's shoulder that evening, and kept coming back. It was madness; he was witnessing the Faith with a demon at his ear. Curiously, Mara never interfered when he was actually interacting with a possible convert—she could even be helpful sometimes, reminding him of something he hadn't quite remembered from earlier in a conversation. He also saw the full-sized albino mother fairly often, with or without the demon at his shoulder, and now, except for being an albino, the woman seemed quite normal, although he never exchanged more than a few words with her now. Had he really talked with her before? Was what he saw in that tiny alley real? Yet Miyuki-chan now knew him, never failed to talk to him when he happened on her and her mother. She was real. She remembered things that Caldwell remembered explaining to her in that first encounter in the alley...was it? He couldn't even find the alley again, and gave up looking for it. The demon didn't explain, and he did not ask her.

Perhaps anything can become routine if it goes on long enough the same way. August and the summer break for nearly every school in Japan came, and then passed. The demon at one shoulder or another—or occasionally both—became something like a radio switched on but not really listened to except for a moment here and there. Sometimes Caldwell Young thought he saw or heard very strange things, but except for the shoulder demon, never for more than a moment, never clearly enough or for long enough for him to be sure they were not misperceptions, or waking dreams after a sleepless night.

As September waned, Caldwell Young had more or less convinced himself that Mara was a construction of his own mind, voicing things he had not allowed himself to think of in a normal way. The way she seemed to know so much about him—wasn't that the most likely explanation? And if he was deluded, he _knew_ he was deluded.

It all might come down to his desire to leave his mission and go home. His sisters did nothing but write notes on cards he knew his mother had forced them to send, and his mother was leaving out much too much in her letters. Of course, she _did_ know that the Mission President or his wife would be reading everything before Caldwell—that was one of the rules, and it made sense. Didn't it?

"Believe whatever makes you feel good, Caldwell," his familiar demon said in his ear one morning. "I'm real as that dreadful oatmeal you just finished." He now realized for some reason that hadn't seen Miyuki-chan and his mother since—when was it? Some time in June, he thought. "June 4," said the demon.

"Thanks," he said, or thought he said. Talking back to the demon had to be as much a delusion as the demon herself; no one real ever took notice.

Caldwell Young saw Miyuki-chan and her mother later that day, despite the freak blizzard that blanketed Tokyo with more than 140 centimeters of snow. None of the missionaries went out that day. The Mission President for the very first time switched the television in the common room to a live channel—CNN. It wasn't just snowing in Tokyo. Anchors growing hoarse began to be heard.

"...once again, if you're just tuning in, we are getting reports of snowstorms from across the nation, and from around the world. Neither the National Weather Service and the International Weather Organization has issued any explanation of this phenomenon. Right now here in Atlanta there is about six feet of snow, I think, around the CNN headquarters. (cough) Angela?"

"Yes...Ralph's getting something for his throat now. Here in Atlanta as in so many other cities, traffic is halted except for snow removal, police and emergency vehicles. If you are just joining us, let me tell you that the President spoke to the nation just about an hour ago, and we'll be repeating his address at the top of the hour coming up in...about six minutes now. Ralph and I have been manning the desk here for about ten hours now." The woman paused to drink from a cup. "I guess this is the biggest snow day the world's schoolchildren have ever had. Um, we have something for you from _Japan_ now, from...TBK, is that it? TBK in _Tokyo_ Japan with some new video and...and we have Heather _Sow_-_Tomb_...(someone pronounced the name for the anchor)...I'm sorry, _Saw-Oh-Toe-May. _Are you there?"

The reporter Caldwell Young had flown to Japan sitting beside appeared on the screen. She was in a studio somewhere, but she was wearing a winter coat complete with snow still falling off. She was still putting on her headset. "I'm here, Angela. We have some video from Shinjuku ward, from a neighborhood called _Kabukichō, _from about an hour ago. This is actually _police_ video. There are many police cameras in this neighborhood, and one of them caught this...I'm _sorry, _I didn't know this hadn't been censored yet. As you could see all too clearly just now, a man fell into the street on his head and was killed instantly. Not a very pretty sight. The man was working to clear snow from the roof of one of the buildings here and fell. I can tell you that the girl that is putting her coat over the body is a student at the high school there. In fact, she's the student body president, her name is Skuld Thorsdottir, or Torusudottaa Sukurudo in Japanese. That's her little girl, she's a teen mother...a very bad thing for little Miyuki to see. I met Miyuki before I came to TBK. Her father is playing for the Mariners, or would be playing today if all the games weren't snowed out. If someone who knows him is watching, make sure he knows his daughter and her mother are OK. Her high school is now an emergency shelter. There's quite a large homeless population in _Kabukichō, _and police are working very hard to get them under shelter. This can be quite hard; they have learned to hide from police, and many are undocumented workers. This is one of the neighborhoods where many immigrants gather, legal and not. So they—"

The anchor interrupted Saotome. "We're going to break away in less than a minute, Heather. Is there anything you can add quickly?"

"Yes. You know who you are. _Call me_, damn it."

"You'd better call her, damn it," said Caldwell Young's little demon.

He did, leaving the prayer meeting the Kolbergs began. No one stopped him; no one seemed to notice. Not even Caldwell Young until he had actually pressed the forbidden cellphone up to his face. "I guess you're not dead yet," said Saotome across the ether.

Caldwell Young asked, "Were you there when that happened?"

Heather Saotome said, "Yes, I was—and the cops took our camera right away."

Caldwell Young asked, "Then how did you get video _from the police!_"

Heather Saotome said, "Someone hacked their system. You'd never believe it if I told you who."

Caldwell Young said, "Then I know this person?"

Heather Saotome said, "Of course you do, dammit. It's your special friend _Skuld_, fathead. You don't know anything about this, do you?" finished Saotome, now sounding puzzled, if still angry.

Caldwell Young said, "N...no...how would I? I didn't even know...she's pregnant again?"

Heather Saotome said, "She sure looks like it, doesn't she? She just showed up at the station a few minutes ago, gave me a flash drive, and then she was gone again when I looked up. How the hell she got here I haven't got a clue. Some of the trains are still running, but _I was just coming in from the street._ I didn't even have a chance to ask her about the face paint. Or maybe tattoos?"

Caldwell Young said, "You've never seen those before? Oh, this was the first time you met her. She's always had those. I've never asked her what they're about. Although..."

Heather Saotome prompted, "Although? What?"

Caldwell Young said, "She didn't have them on the video. So I guess they must be makeup."

Heather Saotome said, "What do you mean, she didn't have them? I was right there when the guy's head busted like a watermelon. He landed on the only cleared patch on the whole damned street—what luck! Maybe he might have lived if he'd landed in one of the drifts. And Skuld had those things. Are they always blue?

"Every time I've seen her," said Caldwell Young.

"You can see her sigils?" asked the demon, grabbing the phone from Caldwell.

"Sigils? Is that what they're called." asked Heather.

The little Mara said, "No wonder Skuld set wards against you. There are few mortals who can see divine sigils."

"What are you talking about?" asked Saotome, annoyed. "Who are you, anyway?"

The little Mara said, "I work for Skuld's grandma. Gotta go now, but I'll make sure fathead-san calls you back."

"Why did you hang up on her!" demanded Caldwell Young, grabbing at the demon and the phone. She evaded him, bat wings growing larger.

"This part of me is on really low power now. The rest of me is trying to get Hiyo-chan to stop crying, and the snow goddess and all the _shinigami_ working now because of her are sucking up the energy I use. Sort of a magic brownout. And _because_ I've had to shut off or turn down a lot of the spells I've running, both of us have a bigger problem than having your girlfriend mad at you."

"Girlfriend?"

"Never mind, fathead-san. Just turn around and look," said the demon, tucking the phone carefully into the inside pocket of his winter coat—when had he brought that out?

Caldwell Young turned to look, and there was Stan McNamara, pointing. "D...d...d...," he went on.

The demon landed on his shoulder and dug in her talons—her feet were now like a bird-of-prey's. "I think he's trying to say 'demon', fathead-san. I don't have anything like enough energy to erase his memory. So that leaves just two choices on the menu. On Column A, you grab your coat and we get out of here before someone else sees us."

"And Column B?"

"I kill him. Your order, please? Tick-tock, tick-tock."

* * *

"Another one," said Officer Sawagawa. "Don't call it in. Let's spend our time looking for live ones."

"This is the roof that man fell from," said Iwai's sister-in-law. "Don't get too close to the edge."

"But there's a place there—"

Sakagawa cut off Iwai. "We're finished here. If anyone's hiding there, they're already dead."

The lights went out over Kabukichō—and then came on again, but dimmer, and not all quite all of them. However, the sign for a fifth-floor image club flickered back to life, the only one on its building.

"Feel like writing a summons?" said Officer Kotobuki, pointing at the sign and laughing.

Sawamura said, "If I thought they were really doing business, maybe."

"At least it's stopped snowing," contributed Iwai.

"At least for now," said his sister-in-law Kotobuki. She seemed a lot more than three years older now. The last joke hadn't had anything behind it like the Ran he'd known as a _kogal_ high school student.

* * *

The blizzard caught the Mariners on their bus. That is, they were on their chartered bus from Mariner Stadium to SeaTac International, from a twi-night double-header to their last series of away games for the season, in Denver. The snow came down so fast and suddenly on their stretch of freeway that they were jammed up by collisions and jackknifed big-rigs before they could reach an exit.

The motormouth of the Mariners was a relief pitcher named Ken Dinkeldorf. He'd been traded from the Diamondbacks four seasons before. Exactly why this particular player was still with the Mariners was a unsolved mystery to Kawanishi Sentaro, who had played in all but three games in the season. Dinkeldorf hadn't been in play for the last fourteen games. He'd finished only three games in the whole season—and he'd lost two of them. He'd seemed always talk the entire time the team was on an airplane or on a bus to or from every airport or, on the one occasion, between New York and Philadelphia. And he talked the whole time the team was trapped by the blizzard, at least all the time Kawanishi had been awake—which was most of the time. He could not quite be sure because he didn't wear a watch, and his cell had broken when the bus had thumped into the side of an auto-transporter. He stopped asking the time as soon as he noticed it was irritating the people he kept asking.

One reason Kawanishi was so irritated by Dinkeldorf was that the Japanese-born shortstop could follow less of Dinkeldorf's English than any of the other players'. After more than a year in America Kawanishi could _usually_ make himself understood, even when speaking of things other than baseball, and if he did not understand everything, at least he was making more good guesses than bad ones now—except with Dinkeldorf. Dinkeldorf spoke a language that was so far from what he thought was English he thought that the other players didn't really understand everything Dinkeldorf said. Worse, Dinkeldorf, when he talked, never seemed to talk about baseball. When he was playing, or even practicing, Dinkeldorf might have been a deafmute—he said no more than was absolutely required, and maybe less. None of the others seemed to ask him to say much, anyway.

What did he talk about? It was never predictable, but he did tell a lot of dirty stories. A _lot_ of dirty stories, some of them jokes, and some about what Dinkedorf had done, or said he might do, or said he would like to do, or what he heard someone else did. There were certain frequent words and phrases Kawanishi had learned to interpret. One was "har"—Dinkeldorf's way of saying "whore." "slat" for "slut" was another one. "jalbat" took awhile to decipher—that was "jail-bait," a word for a girl too young to have sex with legally. Dinkeldorf had used that a lot since the collision, and he'd looked over at Kawanishi sometimes when he'd said it, sometimes along with "slat" or "har" or "gook." Dinkeldorf had called Kawanishi a gook once, but then he instantly apologized. He'd apologized so loud everyone else on the team must have heard it that day.

Dinkeldorf never seemed to say "Jap," at least in a way Kawanishi was sure was his way of saying that insult.

Most of the time, most of the other players didn't seem to stay around Dinkeldorf very long, but this time, maybe because there was nothing better to do, or because they'd been drinking—Dinkeldorf always had a flask, or more than one, from what Kawanishi had observed. Well, alcohol can make some people friends as long as it is shared, though Kawanishi had never enjoyed drinking it once he'd tried it a few times. Kawanishi was no temperance man—as a Japanese that would have been cause for suspicion that he was not quite sane, or at least ignorant of the way of things, a nail that should be pounded down. He just did not care to drink, or to be around people when they were drinking, especially if they were all men. He grudged none of the other players for drinking. He did not even think Dinkeldorf was really a drunk; he had seen enough true drunks in Kabukichō to know an alcoholic from a man who likes a drink or three, he thought—and he was, largely, right. Quite a lot of the Manager program at his high school was learning how to recognize and deal with problem drinkers. A bar with a reputation as a haven for habitual drunks was not a bar that would be in business too long in Tokyo. It wasn't the liquor that brought in the customers; it was the reputation of the bar. It was the reputation that paid the rent, not liquor that was, really, just a few variations on a few formulas.

Not that Dinkeldorf would ever get into a bar in Kabukichō except for a few tourist hangouts. Certainly he would have no luck finding a "_har"_ that was even Japanese, much less one with the pin of a Mizushō graduate.

Unbearable images returned to Kawanishi's mind once again with the last thought. And he hated Dinkeldorf three or four times as much as he had a second before. Why? Dinkeldorf had no respect, not even any human feeling for the "_hars_" he spoke of so much. Kawanishi had both; that was what was tearing him apart so much of his time. It would be worse after the last games—if there even were any more of the games. The snow, the deep snow, all around the world, from what the radio news said. Could it really be that...?

And Dinkeldorf? Did he know something he hadn't known before?

"...now revised to 125 dead and only 3 survivors. Another airliner crash has been reported in—"

"_Tan dat shat aff da rajyo_!" Dinkeldorf shouted, interrupting his current story until the radio switched over to terrible music, which Dinkeldorf sang along with for a verse before returning to whatever story he was telling. Whatever it was, there were "_hars"_ in it.

* * *

Shortly after the sun burned through the overcast about an hour before local noon in Kabukichō, Officers Sawamura, Kotobuki, and Iwai found a corpse unlike the others. Iwai was the first to speak. "What did that? Rats?"

"I've never rats do something like this," said Sawamura.

"Maybe dogs?" said Kotobuki. "Some of those illegal guard dogs, maybe. If they got loose and formed a pack."

"I think someone would have reported a pack by now, and even the Sergeant would have said something about it," said Sawamura.

Unexpected movement in a drift a few meters away startled Iwai so much he drew his gun—he hadn't been issued a firearm before. In fact, only Sawamura had carried a firearm on a patrol with Iwai before now, and not always, but all of them were armed now. Was this why? Iwai asked himself.

The snowdrift produced a living man, more or less, quite a tall man. As he brushed snow from himself, Iwai saw that the man had a doll, a figure of some kind with wings—batlike wings—otherwise a girl. The figure was quite realistic.

"Where did you get that, my frosty friend?" asked Sawamura, indicating the figure.

"I...I brought it from America," said the man. It was a _gaijin_—in fact, it was a familiar gaijin, one of the two missionaries.

Iwai asked, "Where is the other one? Your partner? You're almost always together."

The very tall _gaijin_ said, "He's...all right. I came alone this time."

"Why?" asked Kotobuki. "You were asleep under that drift. I know. It was there the last time we passed by."

The _gaijin_ said, "I don't remember...I must have passed out."

"From drinking?" asked Sawamura.

"No. I don't drink alcohol," said the _gaijin_.

"Maybe you should come to the station," said Sawamura. "You could have frostbite, you know."

"I'm all right. I was going to the high school. I need to talk to one of the teachers there. You know her, Koizumi-sensei. You may have noticed her talking with my partner. It's very important. I can't tell you why without breaking a confidence. Will you let me go there?"

Sawamura finally said, "You can go. I'm not sure you'll find Koizumi-sensei there. Trains have started to run again, most of them."

"But there are still people sheltered at the school, aren't there?"

"Yes. It's still cold out here, even if the sun is out."

"Yes. It is cold."

The _gaijin_ with his devil doll went off toward the high school. Officer Sawamura said "Do you think he was telling the truth, Kotobuki-san? Iwai-kun?"

Kotobuki said, "Yes. Not all of it, but what he told us was true. I wonder what the rest is. Is he in love with Koizumi-sensei too?"

"Whatever it is, he took a ridiculous chance—especially for a man who doesn't drink. I didn't catch any alcohol on his breath at all," said Sawamura, legendary within the precinct for his nose for boozy breath, no matter what steps taken to hide it. "Of course, it could just be too cold for me to smell. Well, when it warms up, we'll be smelling lots of bad things. Let's get this one off the street before someone takes a photo and emails it to a news service. We'll put him there and cover him up for now."

"I don't think we have enough police tape left," said Kotobuki.

Sawamura said, "Forget the tape. Iwai, keep people moving if you see any before we get back. We'll bring back the body bag for this one."

"I wonder who he was?" speculated Kotobuki as she rounded the corner on the way to the nearest _kōban_. Iwai couldn't hear any more of the conversation after that, and was more concerned with a gust of cold wind that made him feel every one of the 212 bones in his body.

Meanwhile the _gaijin_ with the doll said, "Are you playing dead, or are you really dead?"

The doll replied, "I think I'm alive. I can't feel the rest of me. I'm sorry, I had to do it."

"Had to do what?" asked Caldwell Young.

Little Mara said in a very small voice, "The man was already dead. It was the only way to keep both of us alive. I can't even fly now."

Caldwell Young asked, "What are you talking about?"

Little Mara said, "Never mind. Cold you put me your inside pocket? I'm really cold."

"All right. I really shouldn't be showing you off, anyway."

Little Mara said, "That's right. I used the very last of my magic to keep those cops from taking you away. Young-san..."

"Yes?" She was still talking, even buttoned inside his coat.

Little Mara said, "I'm scared. I know I'm just an avatar, a little piece of the real Mara, but now, I'm just like you. I could really die. I don't want to fall asleep. Please keep talking. Please?"

Caldwell said, "All right. I'll try. Not much to talk about."

Little Mara said, "Tell me about your home. I know you told Miyuki-chan, but I wasn't really listening most of the time."

Caldwell Young kept up the story almost the whole way to the high school, but just before he entered, he mused, "You're a demon, so you'd know, wouldn't you?"

"Know what?"

Caldwell said, "Maybe half the people back at the dorm think the world is ending. Is it?"

Little Mara said, "The world is ending only for one little girl, Young-san. It was not until last night that Miyuki-chan learned her father and her mother are never going to be together any more...I think I can sleep now. You don't have to talk any more for me, Young-san."

Caldwell said, "You're sure?"

Little Mara said, "I'm sure. I'm gonna sleep now."

* * *

"Oh, it is you," said Koizumi-sensei before anything else. "I misunderstood. I thought..."

"You thought it was Stan-san?" said Caldwell Young.

"McNamara-san, yes," said Koizumi-sensei. "Well, what is it you want with me? I'm sorry to be rude, but I'm very tired. So many people. I never dreamed there were so many poor people living on the streets here."

Caldwell Young said, "Koizumi-sensei...I don't quite know where to begin."

"Well, then, start in the middle and work out both ways from there," she said. Apparently it was a joke. "Is Stan-san all right?"

Young said, "He's not sick. He was...well, _rattled_ when I left him, but he wasn't sick."

Koizumi asked,"Then is he in some kind of trouble? Because of me?"

Young said, "Not because of you. I don't know if he is in trouble at all. I haven't told anyone at the mission about the time you have spent with Stan. No one. I swear before my God, and it means death to me to swear before my God falsely. The death of my soul. Do you understand?"

"I think I do," said the teacher, now looking much older, somehow.

"I don't think you do," said Caldwell Young, noticing that for the very first time he _wanted_ the demon to advise him, to say _something. _But there was no more than a slight flutter against his breast, if that. "You know the student body president very well, don't you?"

"I guess," said Koizumi-sensei. "She's only been in one of my classes. What does this have to do with Stan-chan?"

_Stan-chan._ A woman of Japan would never call a grown man "-chan" unless she was mocking him, or loved him very much. "I don't know. But I think I need to know something about her. Did you see when Skuld was on television yesterday?"

"Skuld on _television?_" retorted Koizumi. "No. No one told me. I can't believe no one would have told me if she was."

Young said, "Maybe it wasn't on Japanese television. It was on CNN, in America."

Koizumi said, "In America? And not here? No one in America knows anything about her, except—"

Young said, "Her boyfriend, the baseball player. Miyuki-chan's father. And there is one other American who knows of her. Has Skuld ever said anything about a reporter named Heather Saotome? Do you know of her? She's working here now for a Japanese news service. I think they may have used her for the feed to CNN because her English would be the best they could get."

Koizumi said, "The man who fell and was killed. I saw it. There was a reporter and a cameraman there. Sawamura-tachi took the camera because they were making pictures of the body. I thought the reporter was one of us until she spoke—she was really _gaijin—_I'm sorry, _gaikokujin,_ I should say, the proper word for a foreign person. Were you there with Stan-san? Is that how the trouble began?" Tears were making tracks down the petit teacher's face; she did not seem aware of them at all. "I'm never going to see Stan-chan again, am I?" The years and sophistication seemed to fall away from Koizumi-sensei like so many autumn leaves from a tree, leaving behind a little girl with a broken heart. Before thinking, Caldwell Young embraced the tiny woman—until a shriek burst from within his coat. He sprang away from Koizumi and tore open his coat, reaching inside the inside pocket and bringing out the tiny Mara. "Are you all right? I'm _sorry_, I forgot...say something."

"How about 'ouch,' fathead-san," whimpered the demonette with crumpled wings.

Just after that, two more things happened. First, Koizumi's eyes rolled back, showing only white, and she began to collapse bonelessy. Second, after Caldwell Young reacted and moved to catch Koizumi before she fell but before he noticed the woman just behind her, the incredibly seductive woman easily caught Koizumi before she fell more than a few centimeters. But now that Caldwell Young had launched himself, momentum took over. With both feet a few critical millimeters from the floor, Caldwell had no way to change velocity or direction in the fraction of a second before he crashed into both women and knocked them backward. From there on events were less and less clear as the aftermath of the collision played out...

* * *

"_She used the tears on the avatar?" asked the Great Lord of Demons._

"_Yes, My Lord," said the demon confined to the form of a small cat._

"_You saw this yourself?"_

"_Yes, My Lord."_

"_Did the mortal see?"_

"_No, My Lord."_

"_And what about—"_

"_I was on her shoulder when it happened."_

"_Then she also saw it." The greater demon laughed._

The lesser demon concealed her fear, or tried to. "I could do nothing more. There was—"

"_Enough," the greater demon dismissed. "Return to your post."_

"_Now?"_

"_Yes, now."_

* * *

After visiting the incredibly smelly toilet once again, Kawanishi Sentaro did something that he had never done before: He did not sit down in the same seat. Instead, he took the empty seat furthest back in the bus. He asked if it was empty, if he could sit there, before he took it, and he had to ask the black players gathered around that seat. Kawanishi had hardly spoken with any of the black players except for playing baseball. He was relieved they allowed him to sit with them. There were some white players who sat with them frequently, although none of them were sitting with them now. All the white players were sitting toward the front of the bus, most of them as close to the mysteriously useless relief pitcher Ken—it was short for "Kenworth" Kawanishi Sentaro remembered—Dinkeldorf. The only people who were not white sitting in the front part of the bus were the team manager, who was black, and the bus driver, perhaps the darkest-skinned Vietnamese man Kawanishi had ever met. He was no _hapukuro,_ not a half-black person; he was just very dark. There were very dark Japanese. Okinawans seemed to be darker, mostly, but the Vietnamese man was darker than any person from Okinawa that Kawanishi had ever met, and he had lived on the island for most of a year at one of his boarding schools, so he had met lots of Okinawan people. The driver was a stranger, and he had given Kawanishi an evil look when Kawanishi had boarded the bus nearly twenty-four hours before. In fact, the only reason he knew the driver was Vietnamese at all was that he wore a small flag pin of the old Vietnamese flag, the one with three red stripes on a yellow field, not the current one with a large yellow star on a red field. Kawanishi Sentaro had not known there was another Vietnamese flag at all until he had come to America. There were many people from Vietnam living in Seattle and Tacoma, and in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, or and their American children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, but he had never seen the flag with the star pinned to their clothes, or sewn on in patch form, or printed on tee-shirts, or flying over a house or a shop, only the yellow flag with three red stripes. It was a sensitive issue, because the people from Vietnam in America had lost a war with the people who were running their country now, the ones using the red flag with the yellow star. It had happened long before Kawanishi had been born, though not quite as long ago as the war with the United States. The only mortal person Kawanishi knew who was still alive was the old, old _oyabun_ of Kabukichō, and she had been a young girl, younger than Skuld when...

The bad images came back, but Kawanishi had seen them in his mind so much since they'd been stranded, they were almost bearable.

Almost.

The black players around him ignored him, except for the man next to him, the one he'd had to pass by to get to the empty seat, which was by the window. The entire view from that side was another bus which had come scraping against their side moments after their own bus had plowed into the overturned auto transporter. Kawanishi could not even see into the other bus, because it was a prison bus with bars and steel network over the windows, which had been painted over. His new neighbor started by saying to him, "Mr. Kawanishi, how's your family back in Japan doing?"

"I don't know," answered Kawanishi, using one of the phrases he had perfected. "My phone dead. Broke...crash."

"I still got some charge on mine. You want to try calling home?"

Kawanishi could not refuse such an unexpected kindness. He called his mother, and he actually got through for a minute before the phone's battery gave out. Of course, the men around him understood nothing of what he had said—they were all looking at him when he closed the phone and gave it back. "Battery gone. Thank you, you are very kind." He couldn't remember the man's name, and he blushed with shame. Why didn't the Americans use _meishi_ so a man could properly learn to deal with them? Kawanishi found it difficult to tell some white Americans apart, and the black ones seemed merely an assortment of brown shades at times. Or almost the color of eggplant, as the man who had lended his phone to Sentaro.

"Did you get through?" the man asked, zipping the phone into the small bag he had pulled up from under his seat.

"Yes, thank you. I talked to my mother."

"What about your wife? Kids?"

"My mother said Miyuki-chan was with her, but there was not time—I did not talk to Miyuki-chan."

"Your wife? Is Miyuki your wife?"

"My daughter. I have no wife."

"Oh. You divorced already?" remarked one of the others.

"Never married. Girlfriend...we were very young."

"It happens," said one of the older ones. "My youngest girl is gonna have a baby in a couple of months. She won't be fifteen until a month after that." The man shook his head. "She still ain't tell me who the father is."

"You gonna put some hurt on him when you find out?" asked another. Kawanishi was not following all of the conversation now, but he had a fair idea of it.

"You got a picture of your daughter?" asked his neighbor. Kawanishi produced his wallet and showed the man, who said, "She looks like she's four or five."

"She is five years old now," said Kawanishi.

"Excuse me for asking, but is her mother young like you?"

"I do not know how old her mother is," said Kawanishi Sentaro, and he was telling the truth.

"Oh. Well...never mind, it don't matter. When's the last time you saw your little girl?" he said, handing the wallet back to Kawanishi.

"She was at the last game," said Kawanishi just as a rumpled white man smelling of liquor pushed to the back of the bus. There had been something new going on in the front of the bus, but Kawanishi had ignored it while he had been talking about Miyuki-chan and wondering if he had shed a tear or something from the way his neighbor had been looking at him and the sound of his voice.

The sound of the voice of the newcomer was far different. Kawanishi did not understand anything the boozy-breathed at all until he turned back for a moment and called out, "Dink, you wanna come back here?" Whatever in all the hells Dinkeldorf said back to the drunk, it must have meant "no" because Dinkeldorf actually _left_ the bus. After that, Kawanishi was able to concentrate on the unwelcome newcomer enough to recognize him as a reporter who visited the team a lot, although Kawanishi had never spoken with the man before. The manager had come with the reporter, Kawanishi now noticed.

The next word that Kawanishi recognized was "Skuld" and he blurted out immediately, "How do you know about Skuld? What did you just say about her?" But it was all in Japanese, which might as well have been Martian to the others, except that he saw in the drunken reporter's eyes that he had understood "Skuld" the way that Kawanishi had said it.

* * *

It is now time to introduce another member of the cast of our story, none other than the not-as-drunk-as-he-seemed sports reporter, Mr. Mariner himself, Seattle's very own Bob Waggoner. We have heard just two smidgeons about him before he pushed past the emergency crew with his camera and sound man whom Kawanishi Sentaro had not quite noticed before his explosive outburst, any more than he had noticed that three men had taken hold of him to keep him from flying up from his seat and attacking "Mr Mariner" (Mr. Waggoner, not the team mascot, who was lucky enough to have been laid off before he could board the bus the day before.)

"Anyone here speak Jap?" asked Waggoner after switching off his microphone, genuinely mystified why the shortstop was angry with him after he had just told him his daughter and his girlfriend back in Japan were all right, that he had seen them on television. "Doesn't he speak any English at all?" Minutes later, far outside and far enough from the rest, he talked about this with Ken Dinkeldorf. "What in the name of H-E-Double-Hockeysticks is wrong with that little Jap?"

"Could be anything. Maybe his gook girlfriend's fucking someone else now. Maybe the kid ain't his. I've never seen him even notice any of the whores. If he was a white man, I'd say he was queer, but who knows about a gook?" said Dinkeldorf.

"Gook or no, he's a good shortstop," said Waggoner.

"Yes, but what does that have to do with anything? I know lots of good coon dogs, but I don't know a damn thing about how they think. Don't matter as long as the dog can hunt," said Dinkeldorf.

"I thought your daddy owned that line," said Waggoner. "Hey, I haven't heard from your daddy for awhile. How's he doing?"

"Poorly. He ain't really got right since Mama died. Didn't even want a whore last time I was to home," said Dinkeldorf.

"Your daddy? Maybe this really is the end of the world."

"Mebbe. But there's gotta be plenty of whores in Hell, so why worry?"

"Your daddy owns that line too," said Waggoner.

"Yeah, maybe, but he ain't said it for a long while," said Dinkeldorf, taking out his last flask before taking his last pull. Then Dinkeldorf asked, "You got anything worth drinking?"

* * *

Caldwell Young woke up trying to squeeze too-bright light out of his eyes. He put a hand over his eyes, and asked, "What happened?"

"You're going to have to be a little more specific," said a voice Caldwell didn't quite recognize for a second.

"Ms. Saotome?"

Heather said, "Correct. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I made Koizumi-sensei fall down again," he said in Japanese. "And another woman. I don't know who she was. Is there a doll with me? With a bat's wings? It is about 20 centimeters tall."

"No, but I can ask at the nurse's station. None of your personal things are here." Heather Saotome wished for a cigarette. She'd never smoked before she'd come to Japan, never thought about it. "You don't remember coming here? You're in a hospital now."

"A hospital?" The missionary boy was speaking English again. _A doll?_

Heather said, "You don't have to answer, but I've got to ask you, what does this doll mean to you?"

"I...I don't know," said the missionary boy slowly. Was the boy measuring his words? "Mara...Mara's been with me since...she was with me at home. In Idaho. _Wa Okaasan to im__ōtotachi no ie._"

"With your mother and sisters, where you lived," echoed Heather. _Must be something like a teddy bear,_ she thought. _Bat wings. That's a strange thing to put on something a missionary boy grew up sleeping with. But these people are supposed to believe some really strange stuff, stuff they don't tell anyone else about._

Mrs. Kolberg returned, and Heather Saotome thought for half a second about asking her about the doll, but changed her mind. Switching to Portuguese, she said to the old woman, "I'm not sure he's really awake. He keeps switching between English and Japanese."

The old woman and her husband had done mission work in Brazil for a stretch before coming to Japan, Saotome remembered. For a wonder, Heather understood what the old missionary woman's answer. Heather had not tried to speak Portuguese since taking two years of it in high school. What Mrs. Kolberg almost whispered to Heather Saotome was: "I hope he isn't like Mr. McNamara. Maybe they took the same drug?"

"Or someone gave it to them," said Heather, slipping back into English before she thought.

"Sister Kolberg?" The missionary boy had recognized the old woman by her voice.

* * *

Heather Saotome didn't have a day off work (that wasn't canceled) until the second game of the league championships, in the final week of October. There had been talk the World Series might be canceled for only the second time in history, but it would be played the week after the November election.

Heather remembered no misgivings from the first time she entered the grounds of _Toritsu Mizushō, _but she felt some now. The snow was a memory. About half the grass was green. The day was already warm enough that she was carrying her jacket over one arm. The grounds were empty; classes had started, and no one was using the athletic field. The baseball diamond wasn't regulation size even for the Japanese game, but it wasn't much smaller. How the school had got enough land for it and grounds beside it was a mystery she had contemplated before, but never got far in investigating. As seedy as much of Kabukichō was, land here wasn't that much less costly than lots close to the Imperial Palace. And instead of everything else crammed into a single building, there was a separate building for the gymnasium, though it was attached by bridges to the main building. And why didn't the maps show the school building as it really was unless your cell or laptop was actually inside Kabukichō? If you weren't, even the streets around the school were different, with the site of the school filled mostly by an amusement center with batting cages torn down when Heather had been in preschool. The only other place like that was the White House area, which Heather had once discovered displayed a configuration from no later than 1977 on the satellite maps.

Heather ended her reverie on the deserted grounds and went into the main building. Not a single person was in the shoe locker room—a misnomer because the "lockers" in this case were simply pigeonholes without any doors, although they were made of metal instead of the wood she had seen in other schools using that arrangement. She found a block of pigeonholes labeled for guests, put her shoes into one of them, and selected a pair of school slippers—here they were actually shoes with light rubber soles and full cloth uppers, and came in a range of sizes. That was a luxury Heather had seen lacking in the most expensive private school for girls in Tokyo. It was peculiar to see it in what was supposed to be a mere trade school, a place for students not up to passing the college entrance exams, or even for another trade school.

The mousy Vice Principal was waiting for her as she stepped up from the shoe-shedding place to the school proper. It was like entering a Japanese home, or a traditional shop, or inn, or tea house. Some of the newer schools—private schools, so far—were shoe-friendly, like Dennys and McDonalds, department stores, but not this place, which was actually less than a decade old. A fire had destroyed an earlier school. _Next to nothing about that fire in the archives,_ Heather thought instead of listening very closely to what the Vice Principal was going on about. Fires in Kabukichō were always big stories. The other fires always seemed to be bad ones, where people were killed. It wasn't surprising; half the streets weren't really wide enough to admit a full-sized fire engine even without illegally-parked vehicles, and the one-and-only single-story building in the neighborhood was the Buddhist temple, which was also the only building with cleared grounds all the way around it. The Shinjuku ward hall didn't even have full sidewalks all the way around it—few streets had sidewalks at all.

"Were you here when the fire happened?" Heather asked. The Vice Principal was one of those people who don't really show their age, of the sub-type that could be anywhere from their forties to their nineties.

"The fire..._Hai,"_ said the Vice Principal. He was one of those all-too-common Japanese who tried to speak English with every American.

"Was anyone hurt?"

"_Iie..._No one hurts. Please, Koizumi-sensei will come. Class now, but soon."

After the Vice Principal scuttled away, Heather Saotome discovered she had been led to the private office of the principal, Shigeo Yagura, one of the most impressive persons she had met on either side of the Pacific Ocean. If the Vice Principal had said anything about Yagura, she had missed it. While she had met the man, she hadn't been in his office before. There were seven minutes to the next hour now and presumably the end of Koizumi's class. At least seven minutes alone in a private office was an opportunity Heather didn't think about—she didn't need to.

Yagura's office was large, relatively speaking. It was smaller than the station manager's office at KMAR, but not much smaller. It was larger than the office of the second grandson of the owner of TBK, and it was considerably larger than the office of the deputy head of the Science Ministry, whom Heather had interviewed the day before. There wasn't much in it. The cabinet was full of official publications. There was nothing on the desk except name holder with Yagura's name and title engraved and blackened into a slab of white plastic. She'd had one just like it made for 1500 yen. On the wall there three framed photographs: One of the Emperor, one of Admiral Yamamoto Isoruku, and one showing the city of Sapporo from the air or, more likely, from a tall building. Heather had seen several pictures before that had seemed more or less the same, so it must be a standard, not as famous outside Japan as Mount Fuji or the giant buddha of Kamakura, but recognizable to pretty much everyone past primary school.

Heather was about to open one of the desk drawers when she caught the tiny shadows of feet coming under the door. Heather had stepped back and turned toward the window when she heard the door's latch working, and had made herself to look as if she had been gazing out the window when she was really watching the reflection of the doorway. It was not Koizumi, or the Vice Principal. It was the student body president, Torusudottaa—Torus'dottaa in the Tokyo dialect—Sukurudo, or Skuld Torsdottir in the language of her father, the CEO of a shipping company in Iceland according to the latest information Heather Saotome had uncovered. Turning back to face her, Heather noticed how vividly blue the markings were on Skuld's face, much too vivid for even a fresh tattoo, even on someone as light-skinned as Skuld—even though Skuld's eyes, and her nose, and the shape of her face, and the jet color and hang of her hair, all which could have come from the figure of a courtesan on a Heian scroll magicked into life and flesh, no Japanese would mistake her for one of themselves in enough light to see that skin. One of her sisters had the same eyes, but in blue, almost as deeply blue as the "sigils" on the teenager's face. And that sister had light brown hair...her eyebrows were the same, it had to be her own color.

"Saotome-san?"

Heather realized she had been in another reverie. "Ah, yes. Why are you here? I came to see Koizumi-sensei." Skuld was using Japanese now, though Heather had discovered Skuld spoke fluent English, and probably Chinese as well, or maybe Vietnamese.

"I wanted to ask you...if you have talked to Kawanishi Sentarō."

"You mean since—he did tell you I interviewed him before I left America, didn't he?"

"I know about that," said Skuld

_But did Kawanishi tell her about it?_ "He called me once. He asked about you and Miyuki-chan."

"Yes," said Skuld.

Heather said, "I asked him some questions about baseball. That's all—wait, not quite. He asked me about a player named Dinkeldorf and about Bob Waggoner. Dinkeldorf plays for the Mariners. Did I tell you about Waggoner when I was here before?"

"Tell me again," said Skuld.

Wondering why Skuld would want to know about Waggoner, Heather did a four-minute-edit of _The Bob Waggoner Story_ and then segued into a coda about Dinkeldorf: "He's a terrible player. I think Waggoner may be the reason he stays on the team. I didn't notice when I was there, but every time Waggoner reports a game that Dinkeldorf played in, he tries to make him look like the best player. Skuld, it's three past the hour now. Koizumi-sensei should be here any second now. Do you want to be here when she comes?"

Skuld left without saying anything else, and Koizumi could not have come in through the same door Skuld had left through more than ten seconds afterward. Heather studied Koizumi's face for a clue if she had seen Skuld leave. Exactly why that should matter, Heather could not fathom, but somehow she _knew_ it was. "Koizumi-sensei, thank you for seeing me today."

There was no other chair in the office besides the one for the Yagura's desk. Subordinates stood while reporting to a superior on this side of the Eastern Ocean. Heather was glad she was standing, and sorry there was no way to offer Koizumi the chair without being impossibly awkward.

Not that it was not awkward enough already.

Heather prompted again, "Do you know why we're in Yagura-_kōchō's _office?"

Koizumi said, "Yagura-_kōchō _is in Sapporo now. An old friend there has passed away."

Heather said, "I'm sorry. Would I know who it was?"

Koizumi said, "It was the mayor. Please, may I ask you something?"

"Of course," Heather said.

Koizumi said, "I've heard nothing from Sta—from Mr. McNamara or his family. They will not take my calls, and all my letters have returned. His people here won't tell me anything. Do you know anything?"

Heather could have probably told a convincing lie, and maybe it would have been better, but she replied to Koizumi Chika: "Mr. Young told me your friend was sent back."

"What else?" asked Chika.

Heather said, "Well...I called his home once. His father thought you were calling. He said something bad to me, and then he hung up. My number is blocked now. I could try again with another phone, but I haven't. But his father said 'you're looking for him here', so _maybe_ that meant he isn't at his home."

"Where do you think he is?" asked Chika

Heather said, "My guess...is that he's in a mental ward somewhere. I caught a couple of the other missionaries gossiping for a few seconds. I'm pretty sure they were talking about Mr. McNamara."

Chika said, "They put in one of those places because..."

Heather said, "I don't know. But...they are very different people, they have very different ways from you. From me, too. For them, what he's done may seem insane. He may even think it himself. You did more than talk with him, didn't you?"

Koizumi Chika said: "Did I have sex with him? No! He never asked, he never touched me anywhere...we never kissed. We never kissed. How can they—"

Heather felt like she was talking to her little sister again. "You were ready to kiss. You were ready to go to bed. I think he was, too. Maybe when he woke up to that, maybe that's when he went ballistic. I'm sorry, but if you were never going to join his church, you were never going to be anything better than friends."

"Not even friends with benefits?" said the diminutive teacher, in good English.

The sophistication of Koizumi surprised Heather, but not terribly. In fact, her little sister had used exactly the same phrase in almost the same conversation, except that it was the Jewish boy with sidelocks working in his family's delicatessen instead of a missionary for a sect most Japanese did not know existed.

Koizumi spoke again: "Maybe I should be in a mental ward. I thought I saw a demon when I found out Stan-chan was being taken away. But it was just before I fainted...very dramatic, no?"

Heather said: "It's completely fucked. I'm sorry, but this is like the real _Little Mermaid_. You're from different worlds. He can't live in yours, and you can't live in his. And speaking of completely fucked situations, what's going on between Skuld and Kawanishi-kun? I didn't tell her, but my old station manager in Seattle told me he was ready to kill Bob Waggoner when Waggoner mentioned Skuld to him."

Koizumi screwed up her face in puzzlement and lapsed into Japanese: "_Dare ga _Bob Waggoner _des'_ _ka_?"

Heather explained, "Bob Waggoner is someone I've thought about killing myself. He's a big-shot sports reporter in Seattle. He has a syndicated column, he does pieces for _Sports Illustrated, _he's on national news once in awhile—you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

Koizumi said, "He reports on baseball."

Heather said, "He makes up stories about baseball. Sometimes there's a little truth in them."

Koizumi said, "This reporter—does she know about this school?"

Heather said, "As a matter of fact, he does, because I told him. But he won't report on it."

Koizumi said, "How are you sure of that?"

Heather said, "I'm really sure he had me fired because I found out he was dumping Skuld because she was learning to work as a soapgirl. It's not because Waggoner has any great love for Japan or because he's queer for Kawanishi-kun. It's because without Kawanishi the Mariners will never make the playoffs. The team is Waggoner's iron rice bowl. If they keep losing, he must be afraid everyone will start noticing what a waste of oxygen he is and stop paying him more money than our President makes."

Koizumi surprised Heather with another comeback: "If Kawanishi-san no longer cares about Skuld-chan, why would he be angry with Mr. Waggoner?"

"You have much to learn about love, _imōto-chan,_" said, reprising one more line from the earlier heart-to-heart with her little sister. "You can still love someone you can't stand to be together with."

Koizumi said, "Yes. I was a stupid girl forget that."

Heather said, "Koizumi-sensei, there one thing you must do now."

Koizumi asked, "What is this thing?"

Heather said, "You must get drunk with me tonight. If you don't, then I will be sure that you should be in a mental ward somewhere."

It wasn't how Heather Saotome had planned to spend her evening off, but that is how she did, more or less.


	7. Chapter 6 The Year of the Rabbit

_In the Year of the Rabbit..._

The first morning of the Year of the Rabbit began for Caldwell Young as he shaved, trying to keep a patch of mirror visible with his face in it while three other young men were using the same mirror over the same sink, about the average at the moment for any of the sinks and mirrors. Caldwell dropped his razor, and the little Mara picked it up, flew up to his face, and began to shave him, saying, "Did you miss me?"

"Why did you come back _today?_" asked Caldwell Young.

His little demon said, "I don't have to answer that, and I won't. You're up much too early. The trains won't be running for two more hours."

"We've chartered a bus," said Caldwell Young. "But you know that."

"Well, yes. I didn't do this, you know. It was just her time," said his little bit of Mara the demon.

* * *

On the first morning of the Year of the Rabbit, Koizumi Chika woke up alone from a dream where she had not been alone, and wept for a few minutes.

* * *

On the first morning of the Year of the Rabbit, Heather Saotome checked several websites while she ate her morning cereal and drank the most essential coffee of the day. She hadn't checked obituaries for a few days, and now she found that Mrs. Kolberg had died. Her body was to be taken to New Zealand for burial. There was no memorial mentioned.

Then Heather checked the weather forecast, and found that thunderstorms with sleet and hail were predicted as probable at intervals through the entire day. Considering that, Heather began her day off by going back to bed until 10:13, when TBK in the person of the second grandson's office lady called Heather to say that Heather would have to work after all.

* * *

They had planned for a day of ten hours, but the mission group did not return until just before dawn on the following morning. The bus was late, and the hearse was later. The trip was long, and the airport was closed down when they arrived. Flights did not resume until after three AM, and they were authorized only because the airport had to be cleared for incoming traffic—Tokyo International had been closed because of a ground casualty. They rode trains back.

Mission President Kolberg went immediately to his office, and Caldwell Young followed him automatically, as he had since November. "You've been invaluable to the mission as my personal assistant," said Kolberg, settling into his chair.

Caldwell Young said, "Thank you. Is there anything I should do right now?"

Kolberg said, "Get some sleep—after we talk. Sit down."

Caldwell sat in one of the two guest chairs instead of at his own small desk. Among the items on the Mission President's desk was a miniature handcart encased in a Lucite cube, and in the reflection from the side facing him he saw his familiar demon was curled up on his shoulder, sleeping, or feigning sleep. She hadn't spoken in a long while.

"I'm sending you back to Kabukichō," said Kolberg, looking somewhere to the right of Caldwell, the other side from the napping demon. "You'll have a new partner, Ezekiel Braxton, who should be here tonight if his flight isn't delayed by this weather. Braxton's original mission partner resigned. I'm asking you not to inquire about the circumstances."

"So I work as I did before? I mean, as you laid out the assignment?" asked Caldwell Young.

"For some unknown reason, the ministry won't issue two new permits, only one to replace Mr. McNamara. You are the only chance for any of us to witness there for this year and the next," said Kolberg.

"When do I begin?" asked Caldwell Young.

"If Braxton is here, tomorrow," said Kolberg. He unlocked his desk and brought out a letter—not with its envelope. The letter was stained and water damaged. "You are free for the day. If you don't want to sleep, you may go out. It might be better if you didn't talk with the others too much."

The first sheet of his mother's letter was unreadable except for just a bit by the upper right corner, which was torn. The letter was eleven days old. From the second page on it went:

* * *

of the school year. If we haven't found a place by then, we'll probably stay in Blackfoot with Terry's family, although Caren seems to really want us to come live with her. I'd be afraid for the girls all the time there, although looking at it sensibly, Terry really can't afford for us to stay for very long and Caren could keep us as long as we want.

I have no regrets but selfish ones about giving over our home to others. Even when your father was alive, the farm was failing. If we stayed one more year here I'm sure one of your sisters would probably find a boy to fall in love with and leaving would break her heart for the first time. I've already paid back the loans you took out, so don't say one more word about that subject to me. When you return to our country, you will begin with a fresh start.

If only your father could be there when you return from your mission. Of course he will be there in spirit, but to see how proud he will be on his own living face, that is a joy I will very much regret to miss.

Kathy Ullman had her baby, a little boy, and she changed her mind about the adoption. She came to the Sunday service with him, and he was just the perfect little gentleman through the whole thing. She named him "Conner."

I got a call from your other brother on his birthday. Jack's joined the Army. He said if he'd waited until his birthday, he'd have been too old for the Army to take him. Maybe he'll make his home there. We didn't speak of The Church at all, of course, or about your father. I tried not to say it, but when I told him I was worried that he'd be sent to the fighting, he said he had to go and he hung up before he talked to the girls. Well, Jack is Jack, I guess.

I'm in Idaho Falls, by the way. Martha had to have a tooth pulled and we don't have a dentist in the county any more. Dr. Young moved to Seattle. It was the usual story; he liked living with us, but his wife couldn't stand living out here on the backside of the moon. Martha should be back soon. I'll find a box to mail this from before we go back home.

Love,

Mother

* * *

"Is that a new letter from home?" asked the man sitting in the next bunk over, with a pile of letters beside him.

"Just the one," said Caldwell Young, folding it up.

"These are old letters," the man said—_Taylor, but was it his first or last name?_

"I've got some business to take care of," said Caldwell, stuffing the letter in shirt pocket.

"I guess it can't wait," said Taylor-whatever or whatever-Taylor, loneliness and disappointment apparent.

"No," said Caldwell, slipping on his all-weather coat.

A few steps beyond the dormitory, his familiar demon said, "You do know you hurt that boy's feelings."

"I can't do anything for him now," snapped Caldwell.

* * *

Koizumi-sensei had passed out before she'd finished for her second drink. She was propped by hosts on either side of her, so she was in no danger of falling over. Issei-san, the acting manager of the host bar for this night, was one of them. He explained to Heather Saotome, "Koizumi-sensei started in the second year of the school, so she was never my homeroom teacher since I was in my second year then. But I took other classes from her. She is like a little sister to all of us from the Host program. We know about her and the tall _gaijin_." He wasn't putting on the host persona now that Koizuma was unconscious, but Heather thought he had a dangerous amount of natural charm without his act. He was also a good multitasker; as he talked, with a slight gesture he signaled another host toward two new women standing uncertainly just inside the entrance, which Heather could see in the mirrored wall behind Miyazaki Issei.

"For someone who trains people to serve liquor she's not very good at holding it," said Heather. "You meant the current school when you said she began in the second year?"

"No, the first school, the one that burned. I am a first-year man. I could tell you many interesting things, but of course I won't, because even if you are very beautiful and could pass for a Japanese with a little more time here, I am not forgetting that you are really a _gaijin,_ and a reporter. Hosts must be good at keeping secrets. Like the _geisha_ of Edo, we keep them." Wordlessly, he signaled the second host to leave. "Tell me about the _gaijin._"

Heather said, "All I know is that he was released from the hospital he was in."

Miyazaki said, "I know that, and so does Koizumi-sensei. Tell me what you know of the man."

Heather said, "I didn't know him, really. All I can tell you that I'm sure he had a good heart. And he's not as stupid as I'm sure you must think, he's...the place he's from is something like the wildest parts of Akita-ken. I'm sure he knows a lot about cows and sheep—"

"But nothing at all about women," finished Miyazaki. "Don't patronize me. No man understands very much about women, not even the best Host in Japan."

"And that would be you?" Heather said.

Miyazaki said, "No, that would be Takei-sensei, who trained me. I am only Number Two. I will have to wait until he really retires before I can assume the championship."

"And do you have a wife and children hidden away, like Takei-sensei?" Heather said.

Miyazaki said, "All hosts are bachelors for their customers. What of you, reporter-san? Husband? Boyfriend? Girlfriend, perhaps?"

"You should have checked 'D: None of the above,'" said Heather. "By the way, they didn't send the other boy back to America after all. I was out at Narita Airport yesterday doing a story and there he was with the other missionaries."

Miyazaki said, "You mean, the _gaijin_ missionaries are all going back home now?"

Heather said, "No, they were escorting a body. The wife of one of their priests died. I actually knew her a little, she was a good person."

Miyazaki said, "I'm sorry. That was a very bad joke."

Heather said, "Never mind. Anyway, there was his partner, Young-san, right next to their priest. I didn't talk with him, but either they let him stay or let him come back."

Miyazaki took an elegant sip from his drink, which probably had no alcohol but certainly looked real, and said after another short pause, "I don't normally bring this up, but is this going on your expense account?"

"No," said Heather Saotome.

Miyazaki said, "I should have asked you before. I will take care of the bill, but let me order the drinks from now on, please?"

* * *

"Speak of the devil," said Saotome the reporter, loud enough to be heard over the buzzes of conversations in the host bar. Caldwell Young froze for a second.

"Relax, she doesn't see me," said his familiar.

* * *

Several drinks later Miyazaki hadn't yielded up any of the stuff Heather had been digging for when Heather Saotome noticed the missionary boy at the entrance. "Who is that man?" Miyazaki asked after she had called out.

"What, you don't know?" retorted Heather Saotome.

"That isn't Koizumi-sensei's _gaijin,"_ said Miyazaki, and then he said something in Kabuchikō-cant that Heather couldn't follow at all. Whatever it was, the bouncers released the boy and bowed apologies.

Heather explained, "No, it's his partner, the one I saw at the airport."

"I've never seen that one myself," said Miyazaki.

"I'm sure you would have recognized him if you had," said Heather. "Didn't they teach you how to remember faces at Mizushō?"

"Of course," said Miyazaki, making a gesture. Most of the hosts in the establishment left their guests to form a sort of receiving line for the boy to Miyazaki's C-shaped table, which of course was the best in the house. One of the usually invisible waiters manifested with champagne and proper glasses for it. _Good_ champagne, Heather thought, or at least genuine French from the cartouche on the label. "Young-san, I have heard many good things about you. Have you come with your friend McNamara-san?" said Miyazaki.

"I am sorry, no. Is Koizumi-sensei sick?" asked Caldwell Young.

"She is just sleeping. This happens every time she comes here. We are thinking of getting a cot for her," jested Miyazaki.

"McNamara-san told me all you hosts from the school look after her," said Caldwell Young.

"Your friend told you the truth. Of course, we don't let Koizumi-sensei know that we do. Even if she seems like a fifth-grader, she will always be our _sensei_," said Miyazaki Issei.

"I think some of the police here take extra care for her, too," said Caldwell Young.

"Ah, Sawamura-san. He is the best cop we have had here for a long time. Have you met his wife?" asked Miyazaki.

"No," said Caldwell Young.

"You would like her. Everyone likes her. She is is quite like our _sensei_ in many ways. Including this one; she can never finish a second drink. Sometimes not even her first one," said Miyazaki.

"Miyazaki-san would have made a good policeman himself," said Heather Saotome, trying to join the conversation.

"No, I cannot fight," said Miyazaki.

"A lover and not a fighter, _neh_?" goaded Heather Saotome. "I guess one can't be both."

"There are many who can do both. Takei-sensei is the best," said Miyazaki. "I can do only one thing well, however."

"Does she come here a lot?" asked the boy. The missionary was addressing Heather; he was using English.

"She's not a drunk, if that's what you mean," replied Heather, and switched to Japanese to add, "Why have you come looking for Koizumi-sensei when you have nothing to tell her about McNamara-san? Or do you have something?"

"I know nothing new about Stan," said the boy, still using English, still freezing out Miyazaki, if Miyazaki had no English. It was quite impolite, and the boy knew enough to know it was impolite. That meant he was very upset, at least. He went on, still in English. "I'll be working here again, maybe starting with tomorrow, with a new partner. I wanted Koizumi to know before I showed up. I wanted a chance to tell her without my new partner, and this is my only opportunity to do that."

"Should I wake her?" asked Miyazaki. He used Japanese, but, clearly, he did have some English, Heather Saotome noticed. Caldwell Young did not notice.

"No. Perhaps you shouldn't tell her I was here," said Caldwell Young, in Japanese.

"Mr. Young," said Miyazaki in accented English, "Do you have feeling for Koizumi-sensei same as Mr. McNamara?"

Caldwell Young said, "No. No, I don't, Mr. Miyazaki."

Heather said, "That's a relief. But you are holding a torch for someone, aren't you?"

"What do you mean, 'torch'?" asked Miyazaki.

Heather said, "It means Young-san loves someone who doesn't love him the same way. Young-san, I thought it might be that way when I first met you. Was I right?"

The missionary boy said, "Saotome-san is correct, Miyazaki-san. I loved a girl in America, but she loved someone else. I was never a rival with my friend for Koizumi-sensei."

"But it was against the rules of your church, so you told your priest, and he sent McNamara-san away," said Miyazaki.

Caldwell Young said, "I did not tell my Mission President until after McNamara-san was gone."

"I see. And yet, here you are now." Miyazaki's manners still _seemed_ flawless, but it was clear to Heather that the professional ego masseur was showing real contempt.

"I'm not saying I'm blameless," said the boy, first in English, and then in the Japanese equivalent. "I do know that it was a pure relationship. McNamara-san would have married Koizumi-sensei if she had allowed it. I think he might have even left our Church to do it, and he might just do it yet. I think it might be better for both of them if they did not get together again, but if either of them asked me to help them, I would."

Miyazaki was transfixed for a moment. Perhaps he would have gone on in silence, except that a woman called out to him, "Miyazaki-san, have you done the right thing and married Koizumi-sensei yet?"

Heather had been concentrating on the boy and Miyazaki, so she had missed seeing the woman enter—_women, _actually, or women and girls. The woman was a silver-haired matron in a wheelchair, surrounded by girls who wore their hair the same way, in two buns at the base of slender ponytails—except that one had four of the small buns along with an inexplicably abundant loose fall of long wavy hair. Three had left their hair normally black, but one had colored her hair and her eyebrows cherry-red. One of them was an African, but she wore her tight curls in the same way as the others with two buns. All but the African had contacts that made their eyes blue. The tallest girl, the one pushing the matron's chair, was wearing a striking black Chinese gown with a single spectacular blue rose in shimmering embroidery.

"Ah, you know I can never marry, Chiba-sama," said Miyazaki. The matron introduced the girls as her daughters, including the African. They did not stay long; only the one of the girls had reached drinking age. The one with cherry-red hair clearly would have liked to have stayed longer, and two of the regular customers left, looking unhappy, before the matron and her brood had finished. The matron drank only one glass of champagne, and the tall one, half a glass.

"Who was that, if I may ask?" inquired Heather when the strange party departed.

"A very rich widow," said Miyazaki. "Or a mistress, or both. I haven't seen her for a couple of years. You know the saying, don't be surprised to find anyone in Kabukichō."

"She has connections, whoever she really is," said Heather.

"Yes. Dangerous, perhaps, to follow those connections," said Miyazaki.

"I'll say it again, you'd make a good cop, even if you really couldn't fight," said Heather. _Dammit, he's starting to charm me!_ "Good reporter, too"

"But I make a better host," said Miyazaki shedding all false modesty.

Heather resolved to break the spell. She turned to the missionary boy and saw something unexpected: fear. "Mr. Young, is something wrong?"

"Ah, no. No. Nothing," he stumbled.

"Did you know that woman?" asked Heather. "She's from America—well, she's been there longer than she's lived in Japan. Or so she said." _Hadn't he listened to the conversation at all?_

"I have to be going now," said the missionary boy, draining his champagne glass. And he was off.

Miyazaki drained his own glass, much more slowly. When he set it down, he asked, "You know that _gaijin_ boy. What frightened him just now?"

"I don't really have a clue," said Heather. "I asked if he knew of that woman, and he said he didn't."

"He did not recognize her when she first came. But when I looked at him again, he had, I think," said Miyazaki.

"I don't think he was lying," said Heather Saotome. "He's never had to learn to lie."

Miyazaki commented, "And yet he knows something about our merry widow that he did not tell us about. Perhaps about one of those connections we were speaking of."

Heather considered, then dismissed Miyazaki's conjecture. "That couldn't be it. He's a lot brighter than McNamara-san, but he's still a farm kid from the middle of nowhere. I looked into where he comes from. Akita-ken is the closest I could come to in Japan, but it's really more like, say, Mongolia or Tibet."

* * *

Caldwell Young had no plan other than getting away, to the train back to the dormitory, and sleep, and sanity, except perhaps believing he had a demon familiar. But his fate had more in store for him. Not two steps into the street he found Skuld Torsdottir standing there, enormously pregnant now, and carrying her sleeping child, looking right at him. "I...I don't do this all the time," he sputtered.

"No he doesn't," said his demon, adding, "Saotome the reporter is up in there."

"I know, with Koizumi-sensei," said Skuld. "Why are you apologizing to me, Mr. Young?"

"He was in the host club," said the little demon.

"That's odd, but why should I care?" said Skuld.

"The rabbit queen and her daughters just visited," said his demon. "One of them opened her third eye to get a better look at me."

"Really? And you saw that, did you, Mr. Young?" asked Skuld.

"Yes, that's exactly what I saw," said Caldwell Young.

"Don't be scared, she's a nice person. The nicest of the sisters, except maybe for Keisha," said Skuld.

"You know them?" asked Caldwell Young.

"I don't see them much, but I know them," replied Skuld.

"Julie-chan is hot for him," said the demon.

"Julie-chan is hot for every good-looking boy. But her mother won't let her bother you, Young-san."

"If she keeps her eye on Julie-chan 25 hours a day," appended the demon.

"Where is the rest of you, Mara?" asked Skuld with irritation.

"In Pub Temple with your sisters, fertile Myrtle. You could have left Miyuki-chan with us. Hiyo-chan kept asking for her until she fell asleep."

"You know Miyuki-chan wanted to go with me," said Skuld.

"You should made her stay anyway. What was so important that you had to go back?" said the demon.

"Proctoring an exercise for the first-years and finishing some student president business. Are you having enough fun tormenting Young-san?"

"Not really, but I'm out of practice."

"Mr. Young, you can come with us," said Skuld, returning to courteous tones and vocabulary. "Do you know about Pub Temple?"

"No," said Caldwell Young. "I've never been inside a place that serves liquor until tonight."

Skuld said, "It's the only bar here where mothers can bring their children. Before Mizushō got a day-care center, it was the only place student mothers could keep their children near the school."

* * *

Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V arrived at the center after midnight. Mr. Kolberg, the Mission President, did little more than show him to his dormitory bunk when he arrived. He did know the name of his new mission partner, "Caldwell Young," and that was the name on the bunk beneath his, but there was no one in it. Many of the sleepers were snoring, and the loudest of all was in the top bunk of the next set. Again, no one in the lower bunk, but the covers were down, so this indicated a temporary absence which was filled before Braxton had finished changing into his pajamas. "Brother Young, you're wearing pajamas now?"

Pulling his head through the neck hole, Braxton said, "Sorry, I'm not Brother Young. Is he working late?"

"I think Mr. Kolberg had an errand for him," said the newcomer. "My name is Taylor, Johnston Taylor."

"My name is Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V, and you may call me Brother Zeke, if you like it better than than Brother Braxton. I guess it's a long errand for Brother Young."

"I don't know what it was. Are you going to be his new partner?"

Braxton said, "Yes, Brother Taylor."

"Since the trouble with Brother McNamara, Brother Young has been working with Mr. Kolberg."

Braxton asked, "What was the trouble?"

"We're not supposed to talk about it. I'm sure Mr. Kolberg will tell you what you need to need to know. Him or..."

Braxton prompted, "His wife?"

"Mrs. Kolberg has passed," said the too-wide-awake neighbor. "The weather was so bad...anyway, Mr. Kolberg is staying on until a new couple comes."

Braxton said, "I'm sorry. Is that your partner up there?"

"Yes, Brother Hill. It can take some time to get used to him."

"At night, yes," said Braxton. Brother Hill was snoring very loudly. "What exactly was my partner doing before?"

"They were witnessing in a tough neighborhood. They were the only people the government would give permits for."

Braxton asked, "Tough? You mean his partner was attacked?"

"No, that's not what happened. Some of the others could tell you about it. Once we tried to send more teams, but then we found out we could use only one team."

Braxton said, "Really. Sounds to me like the government here may not like us very much."

"Were you planning on coming to Japan?"

Braxton said, "Yes, but not Tokyo. We were supposed to go to Okinawa."

"What happened?"

Braxton said, "Something I could tell you about, but it would be better if I didn't. You seem to know my new partner pretty well."

"Well, he'll talk to me. Brother Hill isn't much on just talking."

_To you,_ thought Braxton. _Thank the Lord this one isn't my partner._

* * *

Zeke Braxton found his partner's bunk filled when the lights were switched on, all too soon after Taylor finally shut up. He looked manly enough, but, as Zeke had recently learned in a very hard way, that was no guarantee. "Brother Young? Brother Young?" His partner's lips moved as if he was beginning to talk, but no sound came out. "Brother Young?" No sound yet, although the face got a pinched look. "Brother Young?" Still no sound. Finally he grabbed a shoulder, shook it, and said "BROTHER YOUNG!" directly into the man's face—and caught a slight odor of lingering alcohol.

At last his partner opened his eyes. "Are you from Hell?"

"No, I'm from Colorado. I'm Zeke Braxton, and you are supposed to be my partner. _Ohayo. _Do you speak any Japanese at all?"

"I speak a little," said Young, sitting up. "Are you ready to start?"

"Yes," said Braxton.

"I'd change out of those pajamas first if I were you."

"Funny," said Braxton.

"It's not a joke. The MP said if you were here, we would start working today. Well, you're here. We can get breakfast later. The trains will be running in twenty minutes. I want us on the first one." Young pushed past him with towel and razor in hand. Braxton saw that his partner wasn't wearing pajamas, or the garment, or anything.

Taylor in the next bunk over certainly noticed.

* * *

"Look, the missionary is back," said Officer Iwai.

"You mean Koizumi-sensei's man?" asked Officer Kotobuki.

"No, the other one, Young-san," said Officer Sawamura. "He sent me a text. Iwai-kun, we can meet him later, if we have time."

"Sawamura-sempai, I think perhaps we should make time," said Officer Kotobuki. "Look who's coming out of Pub Temple."

* * *

Zeke Braxton could read most of the signs until they crossed the Yasakuni-dori, but beyond the Red Gate, his book-learning began to fail him. Just keeping up with his partner took most of his attention. Already the streets were filling up here. If he fell behind, Braxton realized he would be completely lost. The place was a maze. He almost did lose his partner, but he found that Young had stopped. If he hadn't, Braxton thought he could have taken hours to find his way out, much less locate Young again. Braxton hadn't quite got to his partner when he saw something incredibly shocking: A man in an expensive suit grabbed a schoolgirl from behind. Shouting something, he squeezed her tiny breasts. When Braxton shouted and began to rush toward the man, an iron hand gripped his wrist, and someone tripped him. He then discovered he had been stopped by two angry-looking police officers (one of them a woman). Meanwhile the schoolgirl laughed, said she was all right, and laughed again.

His partner said something he actually understood, but not to him. "Sawamura-san, Koizumi-sensei is drunk."

"I know, I know," said the policeman with the iron hand.

"How could you let that happen?" asked the female officer.

"I didn't do it! Urudo-san and her mother took her out after we closed!" said a woman with glasses and a bartender's apron.

"And I brought her back." It was the man who had grabbed her breasts, who was laughing too.

"Why didn't you take her home?" demanded the female barkeeper.

"I don't know where Koizumi-sensei lives, and she won't tell me," said the breast-grabbing man climbing onto his motorcycle. "I have to go now."

"You can't expect her to work like this," said the barkeeper.

"She can take one day off. She hasn't taken a sick day since she started, you know." The big motorcycle roared to life and carried away the breast-grabbing man. _So this is how the police are here? _thought Zeke Braxton.

When the police left, and the woman (with a barman's apron) and a very large man took the schoolgirl inside the bar they were in front of, which actually had a sign he could read, "Pub Temple"—that is, when he was alone, except for anonymous strangers passing by—Braxton asked, "Why did you do nothing to help the little girl from that pervert?"

"She's much older than she looks. She's a high school teacher, and the pervert is the Minister of Education," said Young in Japanese. "Can you speak any Japanese at all, Brother Braxton?"

"That is why the cops grabbed me? Because of him?" asked Braxton.

Young shook his head. "Koizumi-sensei is a special person here. If anyone were to actually hurt her, they would be lucky if the cops got to them before the yakuza."

Braxton said, "You're joking."

"No," Young said firmly.

An older schoolgirl passed by, sailor top, short light blue skirt...and stubble not just on her legs but on his face. He stopped to exchange brief words with his partner, and then went on.

"Was that—" Braxton began to ask.

Young cut off the question. "It might help if you think of yourself as being on Mars. This is a different world. Now, the McDonalds this way is a good place to get a breakfast that doesn't involve miso soup and soy products a hog might not eat, and to meet _gaijin_ who are going to be our only realistic prospects to win over to The Church."

Braxton thought he might just prove that statement wrong when he began talking to a Japanese woman there while his partner was in the bathroom. That is, until Young returned and she turned out to be a television reporter from Seattle. "Busted," she said in perfectly American English. "Heather Saotome, fourth-generation American. And my mother is Korean, which I have _not_ told the people I work for."

"She works for a network here. Did you go home after you abandoned Koizumi-sensei?" asked Young.

"No, I checked us into the nearest love hotel. When I woke up later, she was gone. What happened?" asked the reporter. The reporter and his partner went over recent events, totally ignoring Braxton, but at least they talked either in English or Japanese he could actually understand—almost all of it. It did not take that long. The reporter excused herself, taking up her cell before she had passed the next stool on her way out.

"Miss Saotome seems to know you very well," remarked Braxton once she was gone.

"She's not my girlfriend if that's what you mean," said Young.

"Do you have one back home?" asked Braxton.

"No. You want to date Saotome-san?" teased Young.

"Of course not. That's against the rules," said Braxton.

"Really? Brother Braxton..." Young hesitated. "This is just a wild guess, but do you think I'm _gay?_"

"Aren't you?" said Braxton.

"No. But your first partner is, isn't he?" said Young.

"Yes."

"Too bad for both of you," said Young. "For your ears only, my first partner fell in love with Koizumi-sensei. And she fell in love with him, which is why I think she lets herself get drunk now.

"And the Minister of Education?" asked Braxton.

"He's a dirty old man, but he sticks to women," said Young.

"How long did you let his affair go on? Your partner, I mean," said Braxton.

"They didn't send him back because of that," said Young. "They sent him back in a straitjacket. If you want to get out of this mission, tell them Saotome is my girlfriend. She'll play along."

Braxton said, "Lying is a sin."

Young said, "Not always. Anyway, if you want to do a mission, I'm sure you'll have to do it with me. As Mr. Kolberg said to me when I started, 'persevere'... Excuse me for a minute."

Young got up and walked past Braxton's back, which was the way toward the nearest door to the street. A woman was bringing a stroller through the door—an empty one, because the child was out and running ahead. The woman was an albino, the child normal-looking. The child ran past Braxton, grabbed the remaining bacon from Young's breakfast, and began eating it. She had large teeth for a small girl—or perhaps a boy with long hair. The child was wearing overalls and a tee-shirt, no clues as to its sex. He or she stared into Zeke Braxton's eyes while eating all of his partner's bacon, and then all of his.

When the strange child finished her bacon, and turned her viper's gaze away to grab a napkin, Zeke Braxton became aware of someone standing behind the child, one hand on its head. The someone was wearing a skirt, the same hue as the transvestite "schoolgirl" but much longer, hanging past the knees. No stubble on the shins visible above the white socks—normal socks, not the bulky ones he had seen on some of the other girls in uniforms. Zeke wasn't sure the someone was in that uniform because a coat hung down to just a few inches above the hem of the sky-blue skirt, and the skirt was so much longer than any of the others he had seen. The someone's face was lovely, and great kindness seemed to be in it as the person looked down at the child. Then the person's eyes looked into Zeke's, and the person said "_Ohayo gozaimas' _to him, upon which he fell off his stool and the hood of his coat came down over his eyes. Howls of laughter filled the air, including his partner's. When Young pulled him up, and pulled the hood off Zeke's head, the someone was gone.

Forty-seven minutes later, Zeke Braxton humbled himself to ask his partner, "Um, that, uh...woman in McDonald's—"

"Her name is Mara. Her little girl is 'Hiyo.'"

"No, I meant..."

"Oh, that one," said Young, chuckling.

"I thought you might know who...who she was," sputtered Braxton.

"Well, I..." Zeke's partner hesitated for an unusually long moment, turning his head aside."

"Well?" prompted Braxton.

Young said, "Yeah...uh, she's a high-school student, second year."

"She," repeated Zeke Braxton.

Once again his partner hesitated, seeming distracted, though for not as long as before. Then he laughed. "She's a real girl, Brother Braxton."

"How are you sure of that?" blurted Braxton.

"Because she's in the same program as Torus'dottaa-san," said Zeke Braxton's partner. "There's a different program for boys who want to be girls."

Later that day, the same police officers showed up after a man in robes with a shaved head had been dogging them for some time, yelling abuse, from the tones. Braxton couldn't follow it; apparently his partner could, because he responded occasionally, sometimes causing the cursing man to pause, or at least change his tone or volume. The police did not arrest the man, but apparently they did persuade him to go away. After Braxton was sure the police had gone, he asked his partner, "Do you know that crazy man?"

Young explained, "He's the priest of the Buddhist temple here. He doesn't care for foreigners, or missionaries. Usually he stays near the temple, but sometimes you'll run into him in other places. We aren't supposed to go on the temple grounds, by the way. That's a specific directive from Mr. Kolberg."

Braxton said, "I haven't seen a temple here."

Young said, "It's in the southeastern corner of the neighborhood. It's in some of the tourist guidebooks, though it's not that old. This whole neighborhood was destroyed in the war. Half the city was destroyed, but Kabukichō was especially thoroughly destroyed."

Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V thought of a another question, but did not say it aloud.


	8. Chapter 7 The Claibornes

_In the Year of the Rabbit..._

The first morning of the Year of the Rabbit began for Caldwell Young as he shaved, trying to keep a patch of mirror visible with his face in it while three other young men were using the same mirror over the same sink, about the average at the moment for any of the sinks and mirrors. Caldwell dropped his razor, and the little Mara picked it up, flew up to his face, and began to shave him, saying, "Did you miss me?"

"Why did you come back _today?_" asked Caldwell Young.

His little demon said, "I don't have to answer that, and I won't. You're up much too early. The trains won't be running for two more hours."

"We've chartered a bus," said Caldwell Young. "But you know that."

"Well, yes. I didn't do this, you know. It was just her time," said his little bit of Mara the demon.

* * *

On the first morning of the Year of the Rabbit, Koizumi Chika woke up alone from a dream where she had not been alone, and wept for a few minutes.

* * *

On the first morning of the Year of the Rabbit, Heather Saotome checked several websites while she ate her morning cereal and drank the most essential coffee of the day. She hadn't checked obituaries for a few days, and now she found that Mrs. Kolberg had died. Her body was to be taken to New Zealand for burial. There was no memorial mentioned.

Then Heather checked the weather forecast, and found that thunderstorms with sleet and hail were predicted as probable at intervals through the entire day. Considering that, Heather began her day off by going back to bed until 10:13, when TBK in the person of the second grandson's office lady called Heather to say that Heather would have to work after all.

* * *

They had planned for a day of ten hours, but the mission group did not return until just before dawn on the following morning. The bus was late, and the hearse was later. The trip was long, and the airport was closed down when they arrived. Flights did not resume until after three AM, and they were authorized only because the airport had to be cleared for incoming traffic—Tokyo International had been closed because of a ground casualty. They rode trains back.

Mission President Kolberg went immediately to his office, and Caldwell Young followed him automatically, as he had since November. "You've been invaluable to the mission as my personal assistant," said Kolberg, settling into his chair.

Caldwell Young said, "Thank you. Is there anything I should do right now?"

Kolberg said, "Get some sleep—after we talk. Sit down."

Caldwell sat in one of the two guest chairs instead of at his own small desk. Among the items on the Mission President's desk was a miniature handcart encased in a Lucite cube, and in the reflection from the side facing him he saw his familiar demon was curled up on his shoulder, sleeping, or feigning sleep. She hadn't spoken in a long while.

"I'm sending you back to Kabukichō," said Kolberg, looking somewhere to the right of Caldwell, the other side from the napping demon. "You'll have a new partner, Ezekiel Braxton, who should be here tonight if his flight isn't delayed by this weather. Braxton's original mission partner resigned. I'm asking you not to inquire about the circumstances."

"So I work as I did before? I mean, as you laid out the assignment?" asked Caldwell Young.

"For some unknown reason, the ministry won't issue two new permits, only one to replace Mr. McNamara. You are the only chance for any of us to witness there for this year and the next," said Kolberg.

"When do I begin?" asked Caldwell Young.

"If Braxton is here, tomorrow," said Kolberg. He unlocked his desk and brought out a letter—not with its envelope. The letter was stained and water damaged. "You are free for the day. If you don't want to sleep, you may go out. It might be better if you didn't talk with the others too much."

The first sheet of his mother's letter was unreadable except for just a bit by the upper right corner, which was torn. The letter was eleven days old. From the second page on it went:

* * *

of the school year. If we haven't found a place by then, we'll probably stay in Blackfoot with Terry's family, although Caren seems to really want us to come live with her. I'd be afraid for the girls all the time there, although looking at it sensibly, Terry really can't afford for us to stay for very long and Caren could keep us as long as we want.

I have no regrets but selfish ones about giving over our home to others. Even when your father was alive, the farm was failing. If we stayed one more year here I'm sure one of your sisters would probably find a boy to fall in love with and leaving would break her heart for the first time. I've already paid back the loans you took out, so don't say one more word about that subject to me. When you return to our country, you will begin with a fresh start.

If only your father could be there when you return from your mission. Of course he will be there in spirit, but to see how proud he will be on his own living face, that is a joy I will very much regret to miss.

Kathy Ullman had her baby, a little boy, and she changed her mind about the adoption. She came to the Sunday service with him, and he was just the perfect little gentleman through the whole thing. She named him "Conner."

I got a call from your other brother on his birthday. Jack's joined the Army. He said if he'd waited until his birthday, he'd have been too old for the Army to take him. Maybe he'll make his home there. We didn't speak of The Church at all, of course, or about your father. I tried not to say it, but when I told him I was worried that he'd be sent to the fighting, he said he had to go and he hung up before he talked to the girls. Well, Jack is Jack, I guess.

I'm in Idaho Falls, by the way. Martha had to have a tooth pulled and we don't have a dentist in the county any more. Dr. Young moved to Seattle. It was the usual story; he liked living with us, but his wife couldn't stand living out here on the backside of the moon. Martha should be back soon. I'll find a box to mail this from before we go back home.

Love,

Mother

* * *

"Is that a new letter from home?" asked the man sitting in the next bunk over, with a pile of letters beside him.

"Just the one," said Caldwell Young, folding it up.

"These are old letters," the man said—_Taylor, but was it his first or last name?_

"I've got some business to take care of," said Caldwell, stuffing the letter in shirt pocket.

"I guess it can't wait," said Taylor-whatever or whatever-Taylor, loneliness and disappointment apparent.

"No," said Caldwell, slipping on his all-weather coat.

A few steps beyond the dormitory, his familiar demon said, "You do know you hurt that boy's feelings."

"I can't do anything for him now," snapped Caldwell.

* * *

Koizumi-sensei had passed out before she'd finished for her second drink. She was propped by hosts on either side of her, so she was in no danger of falling over. Issei-san, the acting manager of the host bar for this night, was one of them. He explained to Heather Saotome, "Koizumi-sensei started in the second year of the school, so she was never my homeroom teacher since I was in my second year then. But I took other classes from her. She is like a little sister to all of us from the Host program. We know about her and the tall _gaijin_." He wasn't putting on the host persona now that Koizuma was unconscious, but Heather thought he had a dangerous amount of natural charm without his act. He was also a good multitasker; as he talked, with a slight gesture he signaled another host toward two new women standing uncertainly just inside the entrance, which Heather could see in the mirrored wall behind Miyazaki Issei.

"For someone who trains people to serve liquor she's not very good at holding it," said Heather. "You meant the current school when you said she began in the second year?"

"No, the first school, the one that burned. I am a first-year man. I could tell you many interesting things, but of course I won't, because even if you are very beautiful and could pass for a Japanese with a little more time here, I am not forgetting that you are really a _gaijin,_ and a reporter. Hosts must be good at keeping secrets. Like the _geisha_ of Edo, we keep them." Wordlessly, he signaled the second host to leave. "Tell me about the _gaijin._"

Heather said, "All I know is that he was released from the hospital he was in."

Miyazaki said, "I know that, and so does Koizumi-sensei. Tell me what you know of the man."

Heather said, "I didn't know him, really. All I can tell you that I'm sure he had a good heart. And he's not as stupid as I'm sure you must think, he's...the place he's from is something like the wildest parts of Akita-ken. I'm sure he knows a lot about cows and sheep—"

"But nothing at all about women," finished Miyazaki. "Don't patronize me. No man understands very much about women, not even the best Host in Japan."

"And that would be you?" Heather said.

Miyazaki said, "No, that would be Takei-sensei, who trained me. I am only Number Two. I will have to wait until he really retires before I can assume the championship."

"And do you have a wife and children hidden away, like Takei-sensei?" Heather said.

Miyazaki said, "All hosts are bachelors for their customers. What of you, reporter-san? Husband? Boyfriend? Girlfriend, perhaps?"

"You should have checked 'D: None of the above,'" said Heather. "By the way, they didn't send the other boy back to America after all. I was out at Narita Airport yesterday doing a story and there he was with the other missionaries."

Miyazaki said, "You mean, the _gaijin_ missionaries are all going back home now?"

Heather said, "No, they were escorting a body. The wife of one of their priests died. I actually knew her a little, she was a good person."

Miyazaki said, "I'm sorry. That was a very bad joke."

Heather said, "Never mind. Anyway, there was his partner, Young-san, right next to their priest. I didn't talk with him, but either they let him stay or let him come back."

Miyazaki took an elegant sip from his drink, which probably had no alcohol but certainly looked real, and said after another short pause, "I don't normally bring this up, but is this going on your expense account?"

"No," said Heather Saotome.

Miyazaki said, "I should have asked you before. I will take care of the bill, but let me order the drinks from now on, please?"

* * *

"Speak of the devil," said Saotome the reporter, loud enough to be heard over the buzzes of conversations in the host bar. Caldwell Young froze for a second.

"Relax, she doesn't see me," said his familiar.

* * *

Several drinks later Miyazaki hadn't yielded up any of the stuff Heather had been digging for when Heather Saotome noticed the missionary boy at the entrance. "Who is that man?" Miyazaki asked after she had called out.

"What, you don't know?" retorted Heather Saotome.

"That isn't Koizumi-sensei's _gaijin,"_ said Miyazaki, and then he said something in Kabuchikō-cant that Heather couldn't follow at all. Whatever it was, the bouncers released the boy and bowed apologies.

Heather explained, "No, it's his partner, the one I saw at the airport."

"I've never seen that one myself," said Miyazaki.

"I'm sure you would have recognized him if you had," said Heather. "Didn't they teach you how to remember faces at Mizushō?"

"Of course," said Miyazaki, making a gesture. Most of the hosts in the establishment left their guests to form a sort of receiving line for the boy to Miyazaki's C-shaped table, which of course was the best in the house. One of the usually invisible waiters manifested with champagne and proper glasses for it. _Good_ champagne, Heather thought, or at least genuine French from the cartouche on the label. "Young-san, I have heard many good things about you. Have you come with your friend McNamara-san?" said Miyazaki.

"I am sorry, no. Is Koizumi-sensei sick?" asked Caldwell Young.

"She is just sleeping. This happens every time she comes here. We are thinking of getting a cot for her," jested Miyazaki.

"McNamara-san told me all you hosts from the school look after her," said Caldwell Young.

"Your friend told you the truth. Of course, we don't let Koizumi-sensei know that we do. Even if she seems like a fifth-grader, she will always be our _sensei_," said Miyazaki Issei.

"I think some of the police here take extra care for her, too," said Caldwell Young.

"Ah, Sawamura-san. He is the best cop we have had here for a long time. Have you met his wife?" asked Miyazaki.

"No," said Caldwell Young.

"You would like her. Everyone likes her. She is is quite like our _sensei_ in many ways. Including this one; she can never finish a second drink. Sometimes not even her first one," said Miyazaki.

"Miyazaki-san would have made a good policeman himself," said Heather Saotome, trying to join the conversation.

"No, I cannot fight," said Miyazaki.

"A lover and not a fighter, _neh_?" goaded Heather Saotome. "I guess one can't be both."

"There are many who can do both. Takei-sensei is the best," said Miyazaki. "I can do only one thing well, however."

"Does she come here a lot?" asked the boy. The missionary was addressing Heather; he was using English.

"She's not a drunk, if that's what you mean," replied Heather, and switched to Japanese to add, "Why have you come looking for Koizumi-sensei when you have nothing to tell her about McNamara-san? Or do you have something?"

"I know nothing new about Stan," said the boy, still using English, still freezing out Miyazaki, if Miyazaki had no English. It was quite impolite, and the boy knew enough to know it was impolite. That meant he was very upset, at least. He went on, still in English. "I'll be working here again, maybe starting with tomorrow, with a new partner. I wanted Koizumi to know before I showed up. I wanted a chance to tell her without my new partner, and this is my only opportunity to do that."

"Should I wake her?" asked Miyazaki. He used Japanese, but, clearly, he did have some English, Heather Saotome noticed. Caldwell Young did not notice.

"No. Perhaps you shouldn't tell her I was here," said Caldwell Young, in Japanese.

"Mr. Young," said Miyazaki in accented English, "Do you have feeling for Koizumi-sensei same as Mr. McNamara?"

Caldwell Young said, "No. No, I don't, Mr. Miyazaki."

Heather said, "That's a relief. But you are holding a torch for someone, aren't you?"

"What do you mean, 'torch'?" asked Miyazaki.

Heather said, "It means Young-san loves someone who doesn't love him the same way. Young-san, I thought it might be that way when I first met you. Was I right?"

The missionary boy said, "Saotome-san is correct, Miyazaki-san. I loved a girl in America, but she loved someone else. I was never a rival with my friend for Koizumi-sensei."

"But it was against the rules of your church, so you told your priest, and he sent McNamara-san away," said Miyazaki.

Caldwell Young said, "I did not tell my Mission President until after McNamara-san was gone."

"I see. And yet, here you are now." Miyazaki's manners still _seemed_ flawless, but it was clear to Heather that the professional ego masseur was showing real contempt.

"I'm not saying I'm blameless," said the boy, first in English, and then in the Japanese equivalent. "I do know that it was a pure relationship. McNamara-san would have married Koizumi-sensei if she had allowed it. I think he might have even left our Church to do it, and he might just do it yet. I think it might be better for both of them if they did not get together again, but if either of them asked me to help them, I would."

Miyazaki was transfixed for a moment. Perhaps he would have gone on in silence, except that a woman called out to him, "Miyazaki-san, have you done the right thing and married Koizumi-sensei yet?"

Heather had been concentrating on the boy and Miyazaki, so she had missed seeing the woman enter—_women, _actually, or women and girls. The woman was a silver-haired matron in a wheelchair, surrounded by girls who wore their hair the same way, in two buns at the base of slender ponytails—except that one had four of the small buns along with an inexplicably abundant loose fall of long wavy hair. Three had left their hair normally black, but one had colored her hair and her eyebrows cherry-red. One of them was an African, but she wore her tight curls in the same way as the others with two buns. All but the African had contacts that made their eyes blue. The tallest girl, the one pushing the matron's chair, was wearing a striking black Chinese gown with a single spectacular blue rose in shimmering embroidery.

"Ah, you know I can never marry, Chiba-sama," said Miyazaki. The matron introduced the girls as her daughters, including the African. They did not stay long; only the one of the girls had reached drinking age. The one with cherry-red hair clearly would have liked to have stayed longer, and two of the regular customers left, looking unhappy, before the matron and her brood had finished. The matron drank only one glass of champagne, and the tall one, half a glass.

"Who was that, if I may ask?" inquired Heather when the strange party departed.

"A very rich widow," said Miyazaki. "Or a mistress, or both. I haven't seen her for a couple of years. You know the saying, don't be surprised to find anyone in Kabukichō."

"She has connections, whoever she really is," said Heather.

"Yes. Dangerous, perhaps, to follow those connections," said Miyazaki.

"I'll say it again, you'd make a good cop, even if you really couldn't fight," said Heather. _Dammit, he's starting to charm me!_ "Good reporter, too"

"But I make a better host," said Miyazaki shedding all false modesty.

Heather resolved to break the spell. She turned to the missionary boy and saw something unexpected: fear. "Mr. Young, is something wrong?"

"Ah, no. No. Nothing," he stumbled.

"Did you know that woman?" asked Heather. "She's from America—well, she's been there longer than she's lived in Japan. Or so she said." _Hadn't he listened to the conversation at all?_

"I have to be going now," said the missionary boy, draining his champagne glass. And he was off.

Miyazaki drained his own glass, much more slowly. When he set it down, he asked, "You know that _gaijin_ boy. What frightened him just now?"

"I don't really have a clue," said Heather. "I asked if he knew of that woman, and he said he didn't."

"He did not recognize her when she first came. But when I looked at him again, he had, I think," said Miyazaki.

"I don't think he was lying," said Heather Saotome. "He's never had to learn to lie."

Miyazaki commented, "And yet he knows something about our merry widow that he did not tell us about. Perhaps about one of those connections we were speaking of."

Heather considered, then dismissed Miyazaki's conjecture. "That couldn't be it. He's a lot brighter than McNamara-san, but he's still a farm kid from the middle of nowhere. I looked into where he comes from. Akita-ken is the closest I could come to in Japan, but it's really more like, say, Mongolia or Tibet."

* * *

Caldwell Young had no plan other than getting away, to the train back to the dormitory, and sleep, and sanity, except perhaps believing he had a demon familiar. But his fate had more in store for him. Not two steps into the street he found Skuld Torsdottir standing there, enormously pregnant now, and carrying her sleeping child, looking right at him. "I...I don't do this all the time," he sputtered.

"No he doesn't," said his demon, adding, "Saotome the reporter is up in there."

"I know, with Koizumi-sensei," said Skuld. "Why are you apologizing to me, Mr. Young?"

"He was in the host club," said the little demon.

"That's odd, but why should I care?" said Skuld.

"The rabbit queen and her daughters just visited," said his demon. "One of them opened her third eye to get a better look at me."

"Really? And you saw that, did you, Mr. Young?" asked Skuld.

"Yes, that's exactly what I saw," said Caldwell Young.

"Don't be scared, she's a nice person. The nicest of the sisters, except maybe for Keisha," said Skuld.

"You know them?" asked Caldwell Young.

"I don't see them much, but I know them," replied Skuld.

"Julie-chan is hot for him," said the demon.

"Julie-chan is hot for every good-looking boy. But her mother won't let her bother you, Young-san."

"If she keeps her eye on Julie-chan 25 hours a day," appended the demon.

"Where is the rest of you, Mara?" asked Skuld with irritation.

"In Pub Temple with your sisters, fertile Myrtle. You could have left Miyuki-chan with us. Hiyo-chan kept asking for her until she fell asleep."

"You know Miyuki-chan wanted to go with me," said Skuld.

"You should made her stay anyway. What was so important that you had to go back?" said the demon.

"Proctoring an exercise for the first-years and finishing some student president business. Are you having enough fun tormenting Young-san?"

"Not really, but I'm out of practice."

"Mr. Young, you can come with us," said Skuld, returning to courteous tones and vocabulary. "Do you know about Pub Temple?"

"No," said Caldwell Young. "I've never been inside a place that serves liquor until tonight."

Skuld said, "It's the only bar here where mothers can bring their children. Before Mizushō got a day-care center, it was the only place student mothers could keep their children near the school."

* * *

Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V arrived at the center after midnight. Mr. Kolberg, the Mission President, did little more than show him to his dormitory bunk when he arrived. He did know the name of his new mission partner, "Caldwell Young," and that was the name on the bunk beneath his, but there was no one in it. Many of the sleepers were snoring, and the loudest of all was in the top bunk of the next set. Again, no one in the lower bunk, but the covers were down, so this indicated a temporary absence which was filled before Braxton had finished changing into his pajamas. "Brother Young, you're wearing pajamas now?"

Pulling his head through the neck hole, Braxton said, "Sorry, I'm not Brother Young. Is he working late?"

"I think Mr. Kolberg had an errand for him," said the newcomer. "My name is Taylor, Johnston Taylor."

"My name is Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V, and you may call me Brother Zeke, if you like it better than than Brother Braxton. I guess it's a long errand for Brother Young."

"I don't know what it was. Are you going to be his new partner?"

Braxton said, "Yes, Brother Taylor."

"Since the trouble with Brother McNamara, Brother Young has been working with Mr. Kolberg."

Braxton asked, "What was the trouble?"

"We're not supposed to talk about it. I'm sure Mr. Kolberg will tell you what you need to need to know. Him or..."

Braxton prompted, "His wife?"

"Mrs. Kolberg has passed," said the too-wide-awake neighbor. "The weather was so bad...anyway, Mr. Kolberg is staying on until a new couple comes."

Braxton said, "I'm sorry. Is that your partner up there?"

"Yes, Brother Hill. It can take some time to get used to him."

"At night, yes," said Braxton. Brother Hill was snoring very loudly. "What exactly was my partner doing before?"

"They were witnessing in a tough neighborhood. They were the only people the government would give permits for."

Braxton asked, "Tough? You mean his partner was attacked?"

"No, that's not what happened. Some of the others could tell you about it. Once we tried to send more teams, but then we found out we could use only one team."

Braxton said, "Really. Sounds to me like the government here may not like us very much."

"Were you planning on coming to Japan?"

Braxton said, "Yes, but not Tokyo. We were supposed to go to Okinawa."

"What happened?"

Braxton said, "Something I could tell you about, but it would be better if I didn't. You seem to know my new partner pretty well."

"Well, he'll talk to me. Brother Hill isn't much on just talking."

_To you,_ thought Braxton. _Thank the Lord this one isn't my partner._

* * *

Zeke Braxton found his partner's bunk filled when the lights were switched on, all too soon after Taylor finally shut up. He looked manly enough, but, as Zeke had recently learned in a very hard way, that was no guarantee. "Brother Young? Brother Young?" His partner's lips moved as if he was beginning to talk, but no sound came out. "Brother Young?" No sound yet, although the face got a pinched look. "Brother Young?" Still no sound. Finally he grabbed a shoulder, shook it, and said "BROTHER YOUNG!" directly into the man's face—and caught a slight odor of lingering alcohol.

At last his partner opened his eyes. "Are you from Hell?"

"No, I'm from Colorado. I'm Zeke Braxton, and you are supposed to be my partner. _Ohayo. _Do you speak any Japanese at all?"

"I speak a little," said Young, sitting up. "Are you ready to start?"

"Yes," said Braxton.

"I'd change out of those pajamas first if I were you."

"Funny," said Braxton.

"It's not a joke. The MP said if you were here, we would start working today. Well, you're here. We can get breakfast later. The trains will be running in twenty minutes. I want us on the first one." Young pushed past him with towel and razor in hand. Braxton saw that his partner wasn't wearing pajamas, or the garment, or anything.

Taylor in the next bunk over certainly noticed.

* * *

"Look, the missionary is back," said Officer Iwai.

"You mean Koizumi-sensei's man?" asked Officer Kotobuki.

"No, the other one, Young-san," said Officer Sawamura. "He sent me a text. Iwai-kun, we can meet him later, if we have time."

"Sawamura-sempai, I think perhaps we should make time," said Officer Kotobuki. "Look who's coming out of Pub Temple."

* * *

Zeke Braxton could read most of the signs until they crossed the Yasakuni-dori, but beyond the Red Gate, his book-learning began to fail him. Just keeping up with his partner took most of his attention. Already the streets were filling up here. If he fell behind, Braxton realized he would be completely lost. The place was a maze. He almost did lose his partner, but he found that Young had stopped. If he hadn't, Braxton thought he could have taken hours to find his way out, much less locate Young again. Braxton hadn't quite got to his partner when he saw something incredibly shocking: A man in an expensive suit grabbed a schoolgirl from behind. Shouting something, he squeezed her tiny breasts. When Braxton shouted and began to rush toward the man, an iron hand gripped his wrist, and someone tripped him. He then discovered he had been stopped by two angry-looking police officers (one of them a woman). Meanwhile the schoolgirl laughed, said she was all right, and laughed again.

His partner said something he actually understood, but not to him. "Sawamura-san, Koizumi-sensei is drunk."

"I know, I know," said the policeman with the iron hand.

"How could you let that happen?" asked the female officer.

"I didn't do it! Urudo-san and her mother took her out after we closed!" said a woman with glasses and a bartender's apron.

"And I brought her back." It was the man who had grabbed her breasts, who was laughing too.

"Why didn't you take her home?" demanded the female barkeeper.

"I don't know where Koizumi-sensei lives, and she won't tell me," said the breast-grabbing man climbing onto his motorcycle. "I have to go now."

"You can't expect her to work like this," said the barkeeper.

"She can take one day off. She hasn't taken a sick day since she started, you know." The big motorcycle roared to life and carried away the breast-grabbing man. _So this is how the police are here? _thought Zeke Braxton.

When the police left, and the woman (with a barman's apron) and a very large man took the schoolgirl inside the bar they were in front of, which actually had a sign he could read, "Pub Temple"—that is, when he was alone, except for anonymous strangers passing by—Braxton asked, "Why did you do nothing to help the little girl from that pervert?"

"She's much older than she looks. She's a high school teacher, and the pervert is the Minister of Education," said Young in Japanese. "Can you speak any Japanese at all, Brother Braxton?"

"That is why the cops grabbed me? Because of him?" asked Braxton.

Young shook his head. "Koizumi-sensei is a special person here. If anyone were to actually hurt her, they would be lucky if the cops got to them before the yakuza."

Braxton said, "You're joking."

"No," Young said firmly.

An older schoolgirl passed by, sailor top, short light blue skirt...and stubble not just on her legs but on his face. He stopped to exchange brief words with his partner, and then went on.

"Was that—" Braxton began to ask.

Young cut off the question. "It might help if you think of yourself as being on Mars. This is a different world. Now, the McDonalds this way is a good place to get a breakfast that doesn't involve miso soup and soy products a hog might not eat, and to meet _gaijin_ who are going to be our only realistic prospects to win over to The Church."

Braxton thought he might just prove that statement wrong when he began talking to a Japanese woman there while his partner was in the bathroom. That is, until Young returned and she turned out to be a television reporter from Seattle. "Busted," she said in perfectly American English. "Heather Saotome, fourth-generation American. And my mother is Korean, which I have _not_ told the people I work for."

"She works for a network here. Did you go home after you abandoned Koizumi-sensei?" asked Young.

"No, I checked us into the nearest love hotel. When I woke up later, she was gone. What happened?" asked the reporter. The reporter and his partner went over recent events, totally ignoring Braxton, but at least they talked either in English or Japanese he could actually understand—almost all of it. It did not take that long. The reporter excused herself, taking up her cell before she had passed the next stool on her way out.

"Miss Saotome seems to know you very well," remarked Braxton once she was gone.

"She's not my girlfriend if that's what you mean," said Young.

"Do you have one back home?" asked Braxton.

"No. You want to date Saotome-san?" teased Young.

"Of course not. That's against the rules," said Braxton.

"Really? Brother Braxton..." Young hesitated. "This is just a wild guess, but do you think I'm _gay?_"

"Aren't you?" said Braxton.

"No. But your first partner is, isn't he?" said Young.

"Yes."

"Too bad for both of you," said Young. "For your ears only, my first partner fell in love with Koizumi-sensei. And she fell in love with him, which is why I think she lets herself get drunk now.

"And the Minister of Education?" asked Braxton.

"He's a dirty old man, but he sticks to women," said Young.

"How long did you let his affair go on? Your partner, I mean," said Braxton.

"They didn't send him back because of that," said Young. "They sent him back in a straitjacket. If you want to get out of this mission, tell them Saotome is my girlfriend. She'll play along."

Braxton said, "Lying is a sin."

Young said, "Not always. Anyway, if you want to do a mission, I'm sure you'll have to do it with me. As Mr. Kolberg said to me when I started, 'persevere'... Excuse me for a minute."

Young got up and walked past Braxton's back, which was the way toward the nearest door to the street. A woman was bringing a stroller through the door—an empty one, because the child was out and running ahead. The woman was an albino, the child normal-looking. The child ran past Braxton, grabbed the remaining bacon from Young's breakfast, and began eating it. She had large teeth for a small girl—or perhaps a boy with long hair. The child was wearing overalls and a tee-shirt, no clues as to its sex. He or she stared into Zeke Braxton's eyes while eating all of his partner's bacon, and then all of his.

When the strange child finished her bacon, and turned her viper's gaze away to grab a napkin, Zeke Braxton became aware of someone standing behind the child, one hand on its head. The someone was wearing a skirt, the same hue as the transvestite "schoolgirl" but much longer, hanging past the knees. No stubble on the shins visible above the white socks—normal socks, not the bulky ones he had seen on some of the other girls in uniforms. Zeke wasn't sure the someone was in that uniform because a coat hung down to just a few inches above the hem of the sky-blue skirt, and the skirt was so much longer than any of the others he had seen. The someone's face was lovely, and great kindness seemed to be in it as the person looked down at the child. Then the person's eyes looked into Zeke's, and the person said "_Ohayo gozaimas' _to him, upon which he fell off his stool and the hood of his coat came down over his eyes. Howls of laughter filled the air, including his partner's. When Young pulled him up, and pulled the hood off Zeke's head, the someone was gone.

Forty-seven minutes later, Zeke Braxton humbled himself to ask his partner, "Um, that, uh...woman in McDonald's—"

"Her name is Mara. Her little girl is 'Hiyo.'"

"No, I meant..."

"Oh, that one," said Young, chuckling.

"I thought you might know who...who she was," sputtered Braxton.

"Well, I..." Zeke's partner hesitated for an unusually long moment, turning his head aside."

"Well?" prompted Braxton.

Young said, "Yeah...uh, she's a high-school student, second year."

"She," repeated Zeke Braxton.

Once again his partner hesitated, seeming distracted, though for not as long as before. Then he laughed. "She's a real girl, Brother Braxton."

"How are you sure of that?" blurted Braxton.

"Because she's in the same program as Torus'dottaa-san," said Zeke Braxton's partner. "There's a different program for boys who want to be girls."

Later that day, the same police officers showed up after a man in robes with a shaved head had been dogging them for some time, yelling abuse, from the tones. Braxton couldn't follow it; apparently his partner could, because he responded occasionally, sometimes causing the cursing man to pause, or at least change his tone or volume. The police did not arrest the man, but apparently they did persuade him to go away. After Braxton was sure the police had gone, he asked his partner, "Do you know that crazy man?"

Young explained, "He's the priest of the Buddhist temple here. He doesn't care for foreigners, or missionaries. Usually he stays near the temple, but sometimes you'll run into him in other places. We aren't supposed to go on the temple grounds, by the way. That's a specific directive from Mr. Kolberg."

Braxton said, "I haven't seen a temple here."

Young said, "It's in the southeastern corner of the neighborhood. It's in some of the tourist guidebooks, though it's not that old. This whole neighborhood was destroyed in the war. Half the city was destroyed, but Kabukichō was especially thoroughly destroyed."

Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V thought of a another question, but did not say it aloud.


	9. Chapter 8 Two Quick Ones

The latest Mission President was Tom Bournemouth, from Pocatello. He was eighty years old, and acted anywhere between twenty and seventy-five years younger. His wife Ednetta had a remarkable resemblance to Margaret Hamilton, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West in to Judy Garland's Dorothy in the 1939 _Wizard of Oz._ Man and wife both wore obvious wigs. Ednette was a woman of few words, perhaps because Tom was a man of so many. He delayed all the missionaries with prayer and with (much more) lecturing and sermonizing and storytelling well past ten that morning, and that after keeping them up past midnight less than ten hours before.

Just as they thought they had escaped, the spry old man caught up with Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V and announced he was going along with them, explaining, "Mr. Kolberg told me you fellers had the toughest job of all, so I want to start by seeing for own self. I can't speak one word of the lingo, so you boys'll have to help an old man out!"

By the way they reacted, Braxton began to suspect as they rode the trains with their garrulous new Mission President that more Japanese than he had thought before really knew some English. Or perhaps it was the way Bournemouth tried to be friendly. There was a more or less continuous migration away from the old man to which he seemed totally oblivious.

One couple did not run away. Soon after they boarded the Y-line, who should come up but Sawamura the policeman. He was not in uniform, and he was with his wife, a petite woman with hair colored bright green. Appropriately, her name was 'Midori.'"

"Oh, like the lady who plays the violin?" said Bournemouth.

"We are not related," said Sawamura Midori. Unlike her husband, Midori spoke English—very well, and very politely. She covered her mouth as she giggled, and she avoided looking directly at Bournemouth. By now Braxton recognized these behaviors as very correct and somewhat old-fashioned manners. She patiently endured Bournemouth, even as her husband was talking in Japanese with Young, saying, "Your new priest is a nice old man, but does he ever stop talking?"

They proceeded on together to the main police station in Kabukicho where Sawamura's wife effortlessly charmed everyone, including an initially grumpy sergeant.

At last they left behind saint-patient Midori-san and went out once more into the streets of Kabukicho. About three steps from the door, Bournemouth, who wasn't looking where he was going, ran into—the crazy Buddhist priest. Bournemouth apologized, or thought he was apologizing, and the crazy priest—

Did nothing at all.

"That was you, wasn't it?" asked Caldwell Young.

"No," said his demon. "It was luck. Don't let that old man touch me. I'm allergic to good luck charms, and maybe your old man _is_ one." And as if to illustrate her point, Bournemouth slapped a boney hand on the shoulder little Mara had been roosting on, missing her by less than a centimeter.

"Kolberg said something about a high school in this place. Let's have us a look-see!" said Bournemouth with frightening enthusiasm.

A pigeon (maybe) in his face blinded Braxton for a moment, and by the time he recovered, Bournemouth had almost disappeared into Kabukicho's ever-crowded street scene. He did not quite catch up until it was all too apparent the new Mission President was headed straight for the school—was, in fact, just stepping through the opening in the perimeter wall of its grounds. The old man strode straight past the shoe lockers and up into the school proper without a pause and, of course, still shod in street shoes, straight into a schoolgirl emerging from an office door—Braxton's Miyuki, in the most modest version of the girl's uniform he had seen on any of Mizusho's students. "Hello, good-lookin'!" said Bournemouth guilelessly.

As she bowed, his Miyuki replied, "Welcome to my school. How may I help you, sir?"

"Oh, you speakee English! That's wonderful! What's your name, darlin'?"

"I am...Sakuma Miyuki, sir. You may call me 'Miyuki'."

"He doesn't know about _meishi_," said Young, in Japanese. Then he switched to English: "Miyuki-san, this is our new Mission President, Bishop Thomas Bournemouth. Bishop, this is Sakuma Miyuki, the Student Council President of this high school."

In the staff room Bournemouth went more or less straight to where the lady teachers who had been waiting with Braxton's Miyuki by the _Moa_ statue at Shibuya Station and an older woman with them. Braxton left the room on a greatly needed quest for a suitable toilet, which he located in time. When he found his way back, his partner was waiting for him, but not the Mission President. One of the teachers was saying something about her mother, and Braxton's partner said, "The bishop seems to have disappeared about the same time as Nagasawa-sensei's mother," who turned out to be the older woman.

Several hours later a Detective Lieutenant Arima came to the school. Braxton had never seen him before, but his partner had.

When they returned to the mission center, Braxton and his partner found Ednette Bournemouth in the MP's office along with Nagasawa Mari-sensei's mother, Oda Kazuo. The two widows were well into the process of getting drunk, so there were no awkward explanations required of Braxton or Young that evening.

After lights out, someone in the dorm said, "I hope they don't make one of us the Mission President." Braxton didn't know who said that, and didn't try to find out.

* * *

Breckenridge Short was short, especially standing next to his wife Ellen Sue. The Short Mission Presidency began with an extended explanation that, while he was quite a distant relation to General Walter Short, he was ready to defend the late General's reputation. Near the end of the second hour, Ezekial Bradbury Braxton V roused enough to become fairly sure that Pearl Harbor was involved, though what any general had to do with a naval disaster eluded Zeke. Before Short quite completed a third hour of his fascinating remarks, he suffered a stroke, losing the power of speech. While he would recover to a remarkable degree over the next several years, this stroke effectively ended the Short Mission Presidency.


	10. Chapter 9 Interregnum

"I don't know," said Caldwell Young. "I've never been above the second floor in the main building, or the main floor of the gymnasium."

"So you've never seen any of the good stuff," said Heather Saotome.

"Only in my imagination," said Caldwell. "Is this from today?"

Heather said "No, it's from...three days ago. I always have trouble with the International Date Line-thing."

"How do you pay for such a big apartment, anyway?" asked Caldwell.

"I don't," said Heather. "It's a VIP place. My boss said I can use it whenever it's available. Your friend Mr. Braxton and Miyuki-san are using my real place tonight."

"Really? Is it as nice as this place?"

"It has enough room for a nice bed," said Heather, turning away from the baseball game on the huge home theater screen to face Caldwell. "I know, you think if I was a _really_ nice person, I would have given them this place for today. But then we would have been on that bed. There's no place else to sit except on the toilet." She finished her beer, and got up to get another, pausing the recorded game. "You want one?"

"No, thank you," said Caldwell Young.

"You want me to make some tea?" asked Heather.

"I can do it," said Caldwell Young.

"Come on, I'll do it. You don't think I don't have enough practice making tea? Every working woman's an OL here to 95% of the salarymen."

"You're a reporter, not an office lady," said Caldwell.

"I've got water at 90 Celsius on tap. _O-cha_ coming right up." said Heather. "That's a nice thing for you just said, especially considering that The Church is not exactly famous for empowering women."

"If you're going to start up on that, I can give you hours of arguments," said Caldwell.

"No thanks," said Heather. "I just meant you come from a background where women are supposed to fit into traditional roles. More like Japan than modern America, maybe. I've never been to Idaho. What's it like? I mean, did you grow up in a ski resort?"

"I don't ski," said Caldwell. "We used to have a ski lift in the county, but it shut down when I was in middle school. It was going to be our class trip, but it broke down, and they never fixed it." Caldwell drank some of the hot green tea and changed the subject. "Have you ever been past the second floor?"

"Second—oh, at Mizushō. No, but I know quite a lot," Heather said, turning down the volume of the entertainment center. "There are six floors of regular classrooms, two for each year. Above that are exercise rooms. Many of them are built so they can be reconfigured, divided up, or combined. There are also some exercise rooms in the basements, mainly for the soapland exercises. Soaplands use tubs, some of them quite large enough for three or four people. And there are regular baths and showers. In the first school...well, this is supposed to be a better design all around according to my source."

"Who is your source?" asked Caldwell.

"Skuld," said Heather.

"Torsdottir told you all that?" exclaimed Caldwell.

"Yes, and more," said Heather.

"Why would she do that? Did you get her drunk?" asked Caldwell Young.

"No, I didn't get her drunk," said Heather. "I promised her I would never report on any of what she told me, not unless she gave me permission."

"And she believed you?" said Caldwell Young.

"Yes," said Heather Saotome. "Reporters who double-cross their sources run out of sources faster than those who don't. Plus, Skuld is one of the best people I've ever met. If I put out the word about her school back in the States, it could torpedo the whole program."

"Really?"

"Japan didn't criminalize prostitution until 1956," explained Heather. "Why did they do it? Probably as part of the deal for the Peace Treaty. And what good did it do? It gave the yaks and the cops another way to make money off the working girls. If it's illegal, it costs more." Heather turned up the volume. Caldwell took this as a signal that she did not want to talk for awhile.

When a while and a little more had passed, Heather turned down the volume to a more reasonable level, and after Caldwell waited, started talking again. "Are you still carrying that torch?"

"Maybe. My mother wrote and said Kathy and Mr. Kreisler got married."

"Who's the guy? I don't remember that name," said Heather.

"Our Japanese teacher," said Caldwell Young.

"You mean the guy that knocked her up," said Heather.

"Yes, I'm sure," said Caldwell. "I guess he has a conscience after all."

"Shouldn't you be happy for her?"

"Yes, I should be," said Caldwell Young, forcing himself to focus on the game. "Doesn't Miyuki-chan's father play for the Mariners?"

"Yes, but he was out for this one. Stomach flu. I don't think they won. They never win when Kawanishi isn't playing."

"And they never lose when he is?" asked Caldwell.

"No, they just can't seem to _win_ without him," said Heather.

"Almost like he has magic?" said Caldwell.

"No, no it's not _magic_," said Heather Saotome. "It's nothing but straight baseball, played by a boy who would never do anything that would hurt the game. I knew all that from the second I met him. It's the one thing on the planet I'm sure that I and that shithead Bob Waggoner agree on." She got up for another beer. From the kitchen area, she called out, "You're still a virgin, aren't you?"

"I already told you I never had sex with Kathy."

"Yeah, with _Kathy_," said Heather when she finished laughing. "I meant with anybody. Listen, there's nothing wrong with waiting. My first few times were gawdawful, and I was damned lucky I didn't get an infection or a baby or both." She had recrossed the room and was poised to take her seat at the other end of the couch, but Heather did not. Instead she sat down right beside Caldwell Young, looking down at her already half-drunken can of beer. She leaned forward to set down the can on the low-set coffee table before the couch. In the process her top rode far up, actually showing some back above her high-waist jeans.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Caldwell Young's demon companion.

Caldwell Young did not answer his demon. Instead, he said, "Ms. Saotome, are you thinking about having sex with me?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact." She stayed bent down, and began to roll the can back and forth slightly with her palms. "But I don't think it would be right."

"Right for me, you mean," said Caldwell.

"Right for me," said Heather. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you would be thinking about your Kathy, and I would be thinking about Kawanishi."

"About baseball?"

"No, not about baseball," said Heather. "You see, I figured out exactly why Bob Waggoner was so jealous when I interviewed Sentaro."

"That's his name? Sentaro?"

"Yes. Well, _Sentarō_, actually. That asshole Waggoner saw it before I did. I fell in love with Sentaro. I didn't know about it until Skuld told me. _That's_ why Waggoner had to get rid of me right away. Sentaro was going to be his next big thing, maybe his last big thing. Another DiMaggio, another Gehrig, another Ted Williams. Maybe there's even a sexual thing; I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Waggoner played in both leagues. But it had to be that chance to become _the_ guy who could bring out Sentaro. And how could he do that if I was there? The son of a bitch..." She stopped rolling the can, and released it. "Wanna know the worst part? Waggoner was exactly right. If I'd stayed in Seattle, I'd be Mrs. Kawanishi by now."

"Skuld..."

"She told me she wants Sentaro to be happy." Heather Saotome picked up her beer, walked to the sink, and emptied the can in the sink. "You want some more tea? I'm making some for myself."

"Sure."

"My boss, the second grandson of the head of the _keiretsu,_ wants to marry me. I'm thinking of doing it."

"Do you love him?"

"Don't be stupid. Don't _pretend_ to be stupid. He's a nice guy, he'd make a good father, and he bores me."

"You'd marry him to keep from marrying Skuld's boyfriend."

"Did I mention that he's insanely rich? Get your cup if you want tea."

Caldwell fetched his cup, but was not deflected. "Don't marry him."

"Oh, you're worried about my happiness? His? He's got brains, too. We'd have great kids."

"You'd both be unhappy."

"Well then, you want to step up to the plate?"

"I'm not insanely rich, I suck at baseball, and I'm carrying a torch."

"But you have brains, you'll make a good father, and you don't bore me. You think I would think about having sex with you without thinking about marrying you? Boy, you must have me pegged as a real _slut!_ Here's your tea, hotshot."

They went back to watching the game, in silence, and as Heather predicted, the Mariners lost, their substitute shortstop missing a ground ball that brought in two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, ruining what would have been a perfect game. Switching to soft music, Heather asked, "When did you stop believing? When Mr. Kreisler screwed your girlfriend?"

"I started doubting when I was thirteen," said Caldwell. "I was reading about Indians—_Native Americans—_and the terrible diseases that killed them. The _Columbian Exchange_, it's called. And I realized that if the Indians really were descended from the lost tribes of Israel, they would have brought the same diseases to America with them."

"Well, we Catholics have our own nonsense. Papal Infallibility, for instance. It's been dogma for less than two centuries. The Pope that lost the last of the Papal States shoved it through. And thanks to Paul VI, we're stuck with _infallible _positions on birth control and abortion."

"But you haven't given up on the church you were raised in, have you?"

"I haven't been to mass since I was sixteen."

"But you haven't given up, have you?"

"Maybe not. What are you looking for, an excuse for not sleeping with me? Why are you still here in Japan? You're not trying to win converts any more. You couldn't; you don't have it in you to be a hypocrite. All you do is find people who will go to your free English classes. And you don't even tell the men that your missionary girls help teach in those classes. Where is a better place than Kabukicho to find lonely men? Men who go to prostitutes because those are the only women who will touch them."

His demon spoke again: "If you want to do this, do it now."

Caldwell did not answer his demon. Instead, he said, "If you're free, and if you still want to, I'll marry you after I finish my mission. I can't promise I won't still be carrying my torch."

"I can't promise I won't be carrying mine. Are we going to have sex now?"

"If you want to."

"Oh, I want to," said Heather Saotome, conveying great sincerity. "But for once I'm going to keep my pants on. Let's go out before I change my mind."

* * *

"Maybe...we should have used a condom." said Ezekial Bradbury Braxton V.

"I used condoms with my customers," said Sakuma Miyuki. "Always."

"I mean...are using any birth control?"

"No," said Miyuki. "You are right. But...I want to feel you, not a piece of rubber. And would it be so terrible to have your child? Think of Miyuki-chan."

"They're going to find out about us," said Braxton. "And they'll send me back to the States."

"Then I will go with you," said Miyuki.

"And we we will be dirt poor. My family will disown me," said Zeke.

"I don't think they will. And if your people at the mission haven't found out about us by now, I think they never will. Or maybe they know and don't care," said Zeke's Miyuki.

"What about your father? Has he found out?" asked Zeke.

"Yes. I told him," said Miyuki.

"And you think he isn't going to raise hell?" asked Zeke Braxton.

"No," said the new Mrs. Braxton.

* * *

"I didn't know there was a Disneyland in Tokyo," said Caldwell Young.

"There isn't," said Heather Saotome. "We're in Chiba Prefecture now. Walt may have been long dead—or frozen—but his business tradition lives on. Land gets quite a bit cheaper once you get out of Tokyo Prefecture. The original Disneyland was in the middle of a bunch of orange groves when Walt put it up. Probably failing orange groves."

"It's expensive enough," said Caldwell.

"It's Japan. Everything costs more here, even in Chiba-ken. Actually, if you don't eat here, it is cheaper. This is a single-admission park. The ones in the States, you have to pay for the rides separately when you run out of the ones they give you at admission," explained Heather.

"What's that character?" asked Caldwell.

"Oh, that's Nekomi," explained Heather.

"Is she a Disney character? That costume..." said Caldwell.

"Nekomi is here because this is Nekomi city." Heather traced out the kanji. "'Cat' and 'beautiful.'"

"Oh," said Caldwell.

"There's talk of making her into an anime series or a movie. But I think it's just talk, wishful thinking by some _otaku_," explained Heather.

"'_O-taku_?'" asked Caldwell.

"Anime and manga geeks. Mostly guys and mostly kids, but there are girls and grown men, too. They're like our Trekkies or Star Wars dweebs—those are really big here, too, and there's a lot of overlap with the _otaku_. They like to dress up in costumes, buy figures and paint them, customize them...Geez, Caldwell, you must have walked past Don Quixote three hundred times by now. They've got a whole floor of stuff for _otaku_."

Caldwell Young took a few seconds to make the connection. "Oh...I didn't connect the name. Why would anyone name a department store 'Don Quixote'?"

"That's a mystery I have yet to solve, along with why anyone would buy a soft drink called 'Calpis.' Anyway, you've never been to Disneyland?"

"No," said Caldwell Young. "I've never been to a theme park. The only rides I've ever been on were at the fair in Idaho Falls—and once in Pocatello. And nothing scary."

"Well, we'll change that," said Heather. "This way to Space Mountain. Hope you brought a change of underwear...you know, there used to be a big convention center here. Ugliest buildings on the planet. But there was some sort of weird storm that wrecked it. It didn't do damage anywhere else; it just trashed that complex. People said the wind sounded like the biggest wolf in the world howling. I don't know, I keep picturing something like the Night on Bald Mountain part from Fantasia."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Caldwell Young.

"God, you are so culturally deprived!" laughed Heather Saotome, walking backwards to face Caldwell, just before she crashed into a couple, a young man with a guitar-case and a raven-haired girl—a girl with unearthly beauty. And as Heather spoke with the young man, the beautiful girl said, "Your mark is not on this man."

"I haven't closed the deal yet," said Caldwell's personal demon. "What are you doing in Japan, Maeve?"

"She can see you!" exclaimed Caldwell.

"Of course. She's a demon. You haven't answered my question, Maeve." At the same time, Heather was asking the young man with the guitar-case, "What, are you performing here?"

"No, we just came from the airport," said the young man, very handsome with a slight touch of androgyny. "We met a talent scout in Seattle who said he'd be interested in signing me if I ever decided to come to Japan."

"So you have a job waiting?" asked Heather.

"Well, I hope so. If it doesn't work out, well, I'll just find gigs where I can. Play for tips if I have to." He tried to speak a little Japanese.

"How long have you been learning Nihongo?" asked Heather.

"Two weeks," said the young man with a guitar.

"You've learned a lot in two weeks," said Heather.

"Well, I have Maeve," he said. "I can't get in too much trouble."

"Are you going to Space Mountain?" asked Heather.

"We saved that for last," said the young man.

"Yes. It was scary," said Maeve the demon. Caldwell Young could now see the tips of small batwings peeking around her back. "Aiden, we really have to go. You'll really need plenty of sleep before the interview."

"Ah, wait," said Heather, sounding a bit serious. "Do you have a meishi for this talent agent?"

"She means his card," said Maeve. "Yes."

"He only gave us one," said Aiden, "I'm sorry, I'll need it back."

"He gave me a card, too," said Maeve, producing the card from somewhere in her quite adequate yet not excessive cleavage. "Here."

"He really gave you his card?" asked Aiden, sounding both puzzled and concerned.

"Yes, he did. You were in the toilet. What, did you think I used magic or something?" said Maeve.

Aiden smiled, looking to Caldwell as if he knew a private joke.

When the couple were gone, Heather took the card back out and studied it. Meanwhile Caldwell's own demon said, "That agent is really after Maeve."

Heather said, "I'm pretty sure the girl knows what's going on. I just hope this agency doesn't turn out the boy too."

"What are you talking about?" said Caldwell Young to Heather and to his demon.

"She means the agent is probably a procurer," said his demon.

"The boy wouldn't know a real yak," said Heather. "Hell, the man might be a real agent. Most of the talent agencies here have the yaks somewhere behind them. But its the girl he's after. Still...I've never seen her in American porn. But there's more money here, and those two need money..."

"Don't worry about them so much," said his demon. "Maeve is a succubus, after all."

"Is that why she looked so beautiful to me?" asked Caldwell.

"No, that wasn't her magic. Maeve really does look like that," said Caldwell's portion of Mara.

"Hey, what's with this?" said Heather, grabbing Caldwell by the erection he hadn't been aware of. "I wish I believed it was for me. Come on. I need to go to the office to research this agent guy."

"No Space Mountain?" protested Caldwell half-heartedly.

"Didn't you read the sign? Your penis must be this short to ride this ride," said Heather, very loudly.

Caldwell's demon broke into helpless laughter. On their way out of the park, they passed by a remarkable number of boyfriends and husbands with sore cheeks and, in one case, a broken jaw.

* * *

"Was your father always a priest?" asked Ezekial Bradbury Braxton V.

"No," said his Miyuki, covering her mouth and her laughing. "No, my father was in the government for most of his life. At one time he was the chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan School Board."

"Then he had something to do with setting up your school?" asked Zeke.

"He fought against its creation. You should have heard him after the fire! He was so happy! There he was, in prison, his career ruined, more than 300 million yen in debt without counting the fines."

"Your father went to prison? Why?" asked Zeke, startled.

"He kept trying to destroy the school after it opened," said his Miyuki, sadly.

"Then he set it on fire!" exclaimed Zeke.

"My father did not have anything to do with the fire," explained Zeke's Miyuki. "That is a sad story, but not my father's story. No, Father was caught in a scheme to have Mizushō banned from baseball competitions. It was a great scandal. His friends did not want to be dragged down with him if they were caught helping him. Father did not go to prison for as long as the man who burned the school, but his career was destroyed. My brother still works for the Metropolitan government, but he will never be promoted. I continued at Yurine Academy on scholarship. It is very expensive. I think the headmaster may have wanted to marry my mother, but she married Father instead—Father's family had a lot of money before the last bubble burst."

After a silence, Zeke asked, "How did your father become a priest?"

"He became the priest of the temple in Kabukicho after I met Skuld-san—and Grandmother Aya, the oyabun. I am sure Aya-dono helped arrange it. Perhaps she bought his debts as well. Yakuza bill collectors stopped coming."

"You met Skuld when you began school there?" asked Zeke.

"No, before," said his Miyuki. "Two of my friends from Yurine Academy caught me before I got on my train and took me away. I had never skipped school before, except when I was really ill. We went to Kabukicho and inside Mizusho. There were boys with us, too, both of them with K. We got there in time for the famous morning _f__ū__zoku_ drill."

Zeke said, "I know what _fūzoku_ means."

"I thought I did before I saw that drill," said Miyuki. She bent down from the bed and brought up her purse, and from it she took a simple stick doll, a 20 centimeter wooden dowel with a ball-shaped turning at one end, the turning painted with a face. "This _kokeshi_ is what we use. Each morning, in homeroom, we slip out of our uniforms and do a thousand practice strokes. This is the foundation of _fūzoku_. During my internship between second and third year, all but one of my customers needed nothing more than this."

"You mean, the man who tried to rape you," prompted Zeke.

"I said 'customers'," said his Miyuki, putting the _kokeshi_ back in her purse. "I will give him a refund if he ever comes back to ask."

"I don't think that's likely," said Zeke. Then he asked, "Is it because of Skuld that you went to Mizushō?"

"Maybe...yes. She wasn't going there yet, but Kawanishi-san was. I saw them meeting outside when classes ended. I came back a few days later, after school, and she was waiting for him—I knew there was a late exercise. Little Miyuki could already talk then..." Big Miyuki grew quieter. "I wonder...if I disappoint you."

"What?" retorted Zeke, startled.

"I know how to please men," said Zeke's Miyuki. "I have tried not to use the arts I have learned with you."

"Why not?" responded Zeke. "I thought the whole mission of your school was to work with pride."

"Yes...but still, the trade is not love. Even if a customer becomes a friend, he is still a customer" She looked up at him and smiled. "It is getting late. Maybe you should go back to the mission center."

"It's not that late," said Zeke, tracing her cheek. "Anyway, we haven't gotten a new Mission President yet. I'm not the only missionary who's stretching the rules. I saw two of our girls getting off my last train, and they weren't dressed according to the guidelines."

"Who will be your new priest?"

"Mission President," Zeke corrected, just before the kiss.

* * *

"The priest's unforgivable sin was to interfere with baseball," explained Heather Saotome as she waited for the upload to finish. "He tried to keep Mizusho from winning the Koshien tournament one year. They were favored—that is, by the bookies. Some of the yaks would have really liked Mizusho to lose, but it was Chairman Sakuma who took the big fall. I think maybe Skuld had something to do with setting him up as a priest. Aya will do anything for her and little Miyuki, I think."

"What if your employer finds out?" asked Caldwell "You said this place had tight security."

"I'm using Skuld's stuff on it," said Heather. "It'll crack anything. This flash drive will play a porn movie unless you have the key."

"Why can't you just look up what you need?"

"Because the yaks have layers and layers and layers and then more layers around their stuff. It will take probably take until morning to sift the right data out. The next visit from the security guard is in...four minutes." Heather pulled the drive. "Time to boogie."

But before they reached the door, it opened. It was not a security guard, but a short, unprepossessing Japanese man in a nicely tailored suit. He had large glasses, which had been temporarily repaired by of duct tape at the bridge and one post. He quickly closed the door behind himself, and asked, "Saotome-san? Why are you here?"

Heather said, "I'm just showing my fiance where I work. I'm sorry, I thought you were on Hokkaido."

"I did not have to go after all," said the little man with as much dignity as he could muster.

"Yamada-sama, this is Caldwell Young. He is on a mission for his church here in Japan. We really aren't supposed to be seeing one another while he is doing his missionary work, but...I hope you will understand." Heather bowed. "You will have my resignation by morning."

"No, you must not resign. Grandfather will be furious with me if you do. You are a great asset. Please..." pleaded the second grandson.

"Thank you for forgiving me, Yamada-sama," said Heather.

The second grandson of the CEO would not let them leave without having words with Caldwell Young, and the safest topic to discuss seemed to be The Church. When they finally left the building, Heather said, "I think you just might have made a convert." She was joking, of course.


	11. Chapter 10 Kathy Kreisler

Caldwell Young entered the mission center and was immediately asked a question: "Who was that woman with you?"

More or less honestly and automatically, he responded with: "She works for a man I've spent about four hours explaining The Church. He sent her to drop me off here in his car."

The lights in the entry hall were shut off. "You mean, his limousine," the unknown woman asked from the darkness.

Caldwell Young clarified, "Yes, or his company's. Excuse me, but who are you?"

"It's me, Cal," said his interrogator, switching the lights on. She was Kathy Ullman, or she had been.

Caldwell Young said, "Kathy. What are you doing here?"

"My husband is the new Mission President," said Kathy.

"Really?"

Kathy said, "Why are you so surprised? You know he did his mission in Japan."

"Yes," said Caldwell. "And of course he can speak Japanese. Still, it's quite an honor to be chosen as the president of this Mission. It is the largest in Japan."

Kathy said, "Where's your partner? McNamara, isn't it?"

Caldwell Young said, "No. He had to go back to the States. Zeke Braxton is my partner now."

Kathy said, "He doesn't seem to be with you, either."

"He..." Caldwell Young stopped himself.

Kathy said, "Well?"

Caldwell Young said, "Her name is Heather Saotome. She's four years older, she's a reporter, she's from Seattle, she works for a Japanese company. Her boss is in love with her, but she's decided to marry me when I finish my mission here. I think her boss might actually come to services tomorrow. I've been together with Heather since early morning. We watched a baseball game on TV, went to Tokyo Disneyland, and then we went to where she works where her boss surprised us. We weren't having sex. We've never had sex. I've never had sex. Did you bring your little boy with you?"

Kathy took a long moment to speak. "Yes, I brought Conner. What kind of a mother do you think I am?"

Caldwell Young said, "A tough one. Maybe you can tell my sometime how you got Kreisler to marry you. Should I start packing, or can I just go straight to bed?"

"I didn't know you were here in Tokyo," said Kathy. "Your mother never said."

"I think I can guess why," said Caldwell Young's demon companion.

* * *

The new Mission President didn't speak to the group until well after Sunday services, though through his wife he told the missionaries to wait for his instructions. The second grandson did come to services, and he talked with Mr. Kreisler for a long time afterward. After that the new MP finally addressed the missionaries in his charge for the first time, beginning with this:

"My name is Frederick Kreisler. I've been a teacher at Rex College in Southeastern Idaho for the last nineteen years, where I met my wife. I've been teaching Japanese, and many of my students have gone on to do missions here in Japan. This is...this is my first time in Tokyo. On my own mission as a much, _much_ younger man..." Kreisler paused for laughter, longer than he needed to. "As I was saying...my mission as a young man was in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, or one of them. I hope some of you will have time to visit there before you return to your homes, unless of course you decide to make your homes here in Japan."

Frederick Kreisler ambled on for twenty more minutes, ending with, "I'm not going to making any changes in your assignments for this week. I'm sorry to have kept you so long today...I'm going to let you go now—" His wife, fussy baby in one arm, had a private word. "Yes, I'm going to let you go now except for Mr. Braxton and Mr. Young, _Caldwell_ Young...who had the misfortune to be one of my students at Rex College." There was more laughter than for any of the new Mission President's previous jokes.

Kathy Kreisler guided Braxton and her husband into the MP office and closed the door behind them. Turning to Caldwell Young she said, "Conner's hungry. Come with me." The Mission President's wife led him into her quarters where she began to nurse her child. "If you're shocked, get over it. It's what the Lord made these for."

"No problem," said Caldwell Young.

"How did you meet that woman?" demanded Kathy.

"She was sitting next to me on the plane when I flew here," said Caldwell.

Kathy said, "I suppose you've been seeing her every day since."

Caldwell Young said, "No, I didn't really get close to her until the blizzard."

"Blizzard?" asked Kathy.

"There was snow around the world," said Caldwell. "Or at least that's what they said on television."

Kathy said, "The snows...what do you mean, you got to know her then?"

"She came to the same shelter," said Caldwell. "A high-school gym."

"Really?" said Kathy. "Why were you at a shelter instead of the mission center?"

"Do you want me to explain for you?" asked Caldwell Young's familiar demon.

"I'm tempted," said Caldwell Young to Mara. Then he returned to talking with Kathy Kreisler, now looking both puzzled and impatient.

* * *

Meanwhile Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V was being interviewed, sort of. Kreisler said, "Your mission partner resigned, I understand. I mean, your first partner."

Zeke Brazton answered, "Yes, sir, he did."

"Would you like to tell me why?"

Braxton didn't, but he explained, "My partner had inappropriate feelings for me."

"You mean, he was gay."

Zeke Brazton answered, "Yes."

Kreisler shook his head. "I've seen a lot of that. College seems to...bring it out. But it's happens everywhere...it's just that it's hidden better in some places...You lived in San Francisco, didn't you?"

Zeke Brazton answered, "No."

"Oh...I'm sorry, that was Mr. _Brandon_."

"I'm from Colorado, around Denver," said Braxton. "It has a gay community."

"Yes, well, even Salt Lake has one...yes...What do you know about your new partner? Why did his partner return, do you know?"

"To put it bluntly, he went nuts," said Braxton. "He started seeing little demons. It was when the blizzards came."

"It was?" Kreisler shook his head, and laughed. "He wasn't the only one who lost his mind. None of the scientists seem to agree on what happened. I was snowed in at the college, power was out for three days...no television. So much static we couldn't pick up radio for more than a minute or two...anyway we didn't know it wasn't just us that were snowed in for almost a day. I imagine attendance was way up here after that."

"I believe it was," said Braxton.

Kreisler asked, "The boy who killed himself...did you know him well?"

"No," said Braxton. "He had a bunk next to ours, but I only spoke with him a few times. We had different assignments and different working hours."

Kreisler said, "Yes...you and your partner are the only ones who are assigned to Kabukichō. Where is that? Near the Palace? I mean, if it has Kabuki theaters, I'd think...no?"

"No," said Braxton. "It's a small entertainment district in Shinjuku Ward. There are a lot of immigrants there."

Kreisler said, "Entertainment? Like the Ginza?"

Zeke Braxton elaborated: "Or Roppongi, but it's really for Japanese only—customers, that is. It's not on many of the guided tours, except maybe for the Buddhist temple."

Kreisler said, "I _see_, I think...I know your partner has a good command of the language. And you...just a sec..." Kreisler fiddled with his laptop. "Oh, I _see_. I got my folder labels wrong...Well, I see that _you_ are the other really fluent speaker. And you have good marks in written Japanese. Very good, very good, just the sort of person we would need in an area where _gaijin_ are less welcome than in other places...Just what kind of _entertainment_ are we talking about here, Mr. _Brax_ton?"

* * *

"How come you never wrote to me?" asked Kathy Ullman Kreisler asked at last.

"You weren't my girlfriend," said Caldwell Young. "You were Mr. Kreisler's. Everybody knew that. Even me, eventually."

Kathy got a very mean look on her face for a moment, but said nothing. Instead, she carefully, gently laid her child in his cot, careful not to wake him. "You should talk to my husband now," she said.

The missionary girls all seemed to be in the common area when Caldwell Young followed Mrs. Kreisler out of her quarters, and Braxton was with them...standing close by his Miyuki. And also close to big Miyuki was little Miyuki, which meant that—

The flock of missionary girls parted before the Mission President's wife. Big Miyuki bowed with courtly grace as she made way. Now the central point of the gathering became visible: A chair. In the chair sat Skuld Torsdottir, nursing both of her infants at once.

"I sense a disturbance in the Force," said Caldwell Young's familiar demon. Skuld's eyebrows raised slightly in reaction.

Ignoring the demon, Caldwell attempted private words with his partner, "When did they come?"

"They were at the service," replied Braxton. "You didn't notice them?"

Kathy Kreisler turned around, with a frozen smile. "You'd better run along to see Mr. Kreisler, Brother Young. He might wander off and forget you if you wait too long." She laughed as if it might be a joke.

Krieisler was doing something with his laptop when Caldwell Young entered his office. "Yes, Mr. Young," said Kreisler. "Close the door, please. Please."

Caldwell Young closed the door, and took his seat before the Mission President's desk. After Kreisler said nothing for too long, he prompted, "You wanted to see me."

Kreisler said, "Yes. Yes...This is...this is _awkward..._awkward for both of us, for you and for me."

Caldwell Young said, "You mean, being a Mission President? It can't be that much different from being a teacher."

"What I mean is..." Kreisler rubbed his hair with one hand, and for the first time Caldwell noticed how thin it was on top. "What I mean is, I know you have a history with my wife."

Caldwell Young said, "She lived on the next farm, we used to play together, and we went to a few dances together. Not the Senior Prom—she went with someone else. We kissed. No tongues. And I am engaged to another woman."

Kreisler said, "You are?"

Caldwell Young said, "Yes."

Kreisler exclaimed: "To that ugly Jap girl!"

* * *

"So, what really happened?" asked Frederick Kreisler's wife at the end of the day after she got their son to sleep.

Kreisler said, "Your boyfriend slugged me."

"I'm shocked, _shocked_," Kathy said. "Right away?"

"I asked him if he was going to marry that ugly Japanese girl," said Kreisler. "_I_ was so shocked, I called her a 'Jap.'"

"He's going to marry a Jap, but not that one," said his wife. "You are _so_ dumb. The big ugly one belongs to his partner. I'll bet you dollars to donuts she's already got his bun in her oven.i You didn't tell anyone else about Cal hitting you, did you?"

Kreisler said, "No. No, of course not. Start out with a scandal on the first day?"

Kreisler's wife said, "Good. It never happened. Too bad you missed the other one."

Kreisler said, "Other one?"

Kreisler's wife said, "The ugly one's friend that showed when you were still talking with Braxton. A half-white Jap with a six-year-old brat and two more just popped out. She went to high school with the ugly one. All our girls were fussing over her and her brats until she left."

Kreisler said, "What are we going to do?"

Kreisler's wife said, "You can teach Jap to our people and English to the Japs. I'll take care of the rest."

* * *

"Your old girlfriend," said Heather Saotome, "And the teacher who got her pregnant...are in charge of you and the other missionaries now?"

"Mr. Kreisler is the new Mission President," confirmed Caldwell Young. "You can stop laughing any time."

"I'm _sorry,_" said Heather, not sounding sorry at all. "I wish I could see you now. Where are you?

Caldwell answered, "In the lobby of the Shinjuku Prince Hotel. Zeke's still in the men's room. Where are you calling from?"

Heather said, "My apartment—well, the one I stay in. You know. The search finished, and I was right. The _talent scout_ is tied up with the Z group. Maybe a third of the white hostesses in Tokyo work for them. They do have regular actresses and idols too, but they also handle a lot of porn actresses. And they're a yak front. They turn out girls."

"Turn out?" queried Caldwell Young.

"Get them into prostitution," explained Heather. "The way it usually works is they sell the girl's contract to another company so Z group isn't liable for anything. The yaks set up these companies all the time, operate for a few months, and then trash them and start new ones."

Caldwell asked, "Why would they need to do that? I mean, with _schools_ for prostitution here?"

Heather said, "Not for foreign girls. And _Mizush__ō_ grads get big cuts of the take. Gotta go now, love."

* * *

"Mom? What are you—what time is it over there?" said Heather Saotome.

"It's after midnight. Your father's asleep."

"You called me to tell me Dad's asleep?"

"I'm sorry I'm not laughing at your joke," said Heather's mother. "You haven't called since Christmas. You haven't sent an email for three weeks now."

Heather said, "I'm sorry, but I've really got stuff going on here."

Heather's mother said, "It would be nice if you told me about some of it. It can't _all_ be confidential, can it?"

"No, not all of it," said Heather, sighing. She scribbled a post-it and stuck it on her computer screen: "Mother 母" The Office Lady waiting for Heather's attention covered her mouth and giggled. "As a matter of fact, I do have some pretty big news. I'm going to get married."

"To Mr. Yamada?" asked Heather's mother.

"No, to a missionary for The Church, believe it or not," said Heather, careful not to lapse into the Japanese she was more used to now. "He wants me to wait until his mission finishes, about a year from now."

Heather's mother said, "This is...why haven't you said anything before?"

Heather explained, "Well, I didn't _know_ until yesterday. He's got no money but he's a solid guy. Um, he's only twenty-one, but he's an _old_ twenty-one, you know what I mean? Kind of like Papa when you met him, I imagine."

Heather's mother said, "I don't know much about The Church, but won't you have to join it?"

Heather said, "I don't think that will be a problem. Like I said, he's an _old_ twenty-one."

Heather's mother said, "I guess you won't be getting married in a Cathedral, then."

Heather said, "Oh, I wouldn't completely rule it out. How's Ashley? She hasn't posted on her blogs for awhile now."

Heather's mother said, "Maybe she's too busy _studying._ That's about all she did when she was home for spring break."

Heather said, "Papa must be proud. Ashley, studying."

Heather's mother said, "Aren't you going to tell me the name of your young man?"

Heather said, "It's Caldwell Young."

"Is he Korean?"

Heather's mother said, "No, he's white with red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. And he's really tall. Sorry to disappoint you, Mom. But he can _speak_ a little Korean."

"Really? Where would he use Korean in Tokyo?"

"I've really got to get back to work, Mom. I'll call you tonight."

* * *

"Ash! You gotta see this!" said her roommate.

"I'm working," said Ashley Saotome.

Her roommate grabbed Ashley's laptop and closed it. "I _mean_ it! Everybody's watching it in the lounge!"

Resisting the impulse to do murder, Ashley Saotome followed her Harvard roommate into the lounge, which was filled mostly with girls. On the screen, her older sister was speaking.

"...funerals in many years. Hayashi's sudden death seems to have been completely unexpected. Tetsutaro Hayashi was 34 years old, one of the youngest _oyabun_ in history of the _yakuza,_ the much-sensationalized but at the same time very real gangs that have dominated organized crime in Japan for many generations. Like the funerals of crime bosses in the United States and elsewhere, the media is not welcome. However, unlike in the United States, official photographers were present and we have here some photographs released by Hayashi's organization. Now, this photo here may remind some of our older viewers of pictures of Russian funerals from the Soviet era, or from the parades in Red Square where the top leadership stood atop Lenin's tomb. The order of the pallbearers probably matters very much. The two men at the head of the coffin..."

In an email to her sister when finals were over Ashley said:

...lost the whole morning's work, but I'll have to admit, it was worth it. Screw KMAR, you're gonna be major network when you come back to the States. I miss you.

The night before I flew back home I caught the Mariners playing the Red Sox in Boston. I got absolutely golden seats from Professor Palmerston. Her daughter went into labor a few hours before the game started. I was three rows from the Mariner's dugout. And I got some more surprises. First of all, Kawanishi, the short stop, spotted me and kind of looked at me funny. A little while later a stadium services guy gives me a note which says that Kawanishi wants to see me after the game. So I go to meet him outside their locker room—I was with Doris McKern, she's my roommate now—and Kawanishi is being interviewed by Bob Waggoner. I didn't expect to run into him in Boston. Anyway, _Waggoner_ looked like he'd seen a ghost, and Kawanishi introduces me as _you_ to Waggoner! It turns out Kawanishi thought I was you. And Waggoner actually made a joke about us all looking alike—he was pretty drunk, by the way.

So, sis, when did you get to know Sentaro Kawanishi? I really didn't get a chance to talk to him. Waggoner just would not leave. I just couldn't stand to be with Waggoner. Why didn't you tell me he's such a creep? You gots lotsa 'splainin' to do when you come home.

When are you going to come home? You've been in Japan for over a year now. I'm going to be home until the last week of August. Take a week or two off and come home before I have to go back to Beantown.

iFor readers who aren't familiar with American English idioms, "bun in the oven" means "pregnant."


	12. Chapter 11 The Second August

By August Kathy Kreisler had settled into a workable routine. Conner was sleeping through most nights and had gotten used to the bottle. Freddie turned out to be as good at teaching English to Japanese as Japanese to Americans, and it took up most of his time. Freddie spent most of his free time with Conner. Kathy was fairly sure Freddie had at least one other kid somewhere, but she didn't press him on it. She certainly couldn't afford to hire a detective to make absolutely sure. Kathy felt she had more than enough leverage to control her husband for the near future.

Braxton's girlfriend kept coming to services, and Kathy learned to tolerate her, and even like her. It helped that she was so homely; it helped more that she was very bright, too bright to be taken in by Freddie's junior-college-teacher charm. Kathy didn't believe that Miyuki-san's interest in The Church would ever lead to real faith, but she was sure that the girl would play the part for the sake of her boyfriend, and play it well. Braxton's girlfriend would be a solid conversion as far as The Church would know.

Administering the mission center was hard work. The paper files were a mess, and the Temple's network had been hacked, many of the files corrupted or even replaced by "bots." Fortunately one of the Japanese guys taking the free English classes was a computer nerd and he fixed things, though he couldn't bring back the all the records. Looking into it later, Kathy found out that calling in a professional service would have been expensive. She made sure to give Freddy credit for getting the free fix, though she really knew the nerd had a crush on her. That wouldn't be useful to include in the official report. However, it did raise the former Kathy Ullman's spirits to know that she could still attract a guy—and the nerd was actually pretty attractive, when he wasn't talking about computers, Japanese cartoons, or _Star Trek._ That is, when he wasn't talking.

Except at Sunday services, she hardly ever saw Caldwell Young. In fact, she wondered why she saw him at all, because he could have gone to the Temple services instead of the services with the locals who were not confirmed or even, in most cases, baptized into The Church. Kathy had decided that this was more of a plus, by August.

A most definite plus was that she never saw Heather Saotome—with one tiny exception. When she brought Conner to his pediatrician, she saw the reporter on the TV in his waiting area. She was speaking Japanese, and Heather did not understand all of what the reporter was saying, though she did catch that it was about high school baseball. Contemporary Japanese was quite different from what she had been taught by Freddie. To give her husband credit, the Japanese he had taught to Kathy and to his other students was correct in every way, as far as it went. As Kathy discovered by looking at some Japanese schoolbooks, it was correct, polite, semi-formal Japanese, accepted and understood by any native. It just wasn't like the way Japanese really spoke most of the time, and it did not include slang, or regionalisms, or words and expressions concerning things not suitable to teach in primary or middle school.

The computer nerd told her that a good way to learn conversational Japanese was by watching their cartoons and reading their comics, or _anime_ and _manga _as the Japanese called it. Naturally, he had a large collection of both and loaned them to Kathy—he would have gifted them, but she did not think it was appropriate.

When Freddie noticed her reading one of the mangas he said, "Where did you get _that?"_

"Tezuka-san loaned it to me," said Kathy, taking off her reading glasses to pound down this protruding nail. "He said it would help me learn to talk the way they really talk here. Maybe he's right. What's the problem?"

"These mangas are _not_ like comic books," said Freddie. "They can be very violent, or have explicit sex—_disgusting _sex."

"This one doesn't," said Kathy. "Why? Do you think I want to have _disgusting _sex with Tezuka-san?" She laughed, and then felt so sorry for Freddie that she had sex with him. Normal sex, of course.

* * *

It seemed to Kathy Kreisler as August began that it might be her best month in Japan so far. The administrative work was caught up, Freddie was whipped into shape, Conner charmed every woman who met him, and her mother informed her that the former Jennabel Hanson had been deserted by Dick Nelson after only four months of marriage, at least the way Jennabel's mother told Kathy's. Dick's mom had a different story, which Kathy's mother said she wouldn't repeat. Of course it would come out later; that gave Kathy something else to look forward to.

Hoping to hear some more of someone else's bad news, Kathy asked Cal Young why his fiancee hadn't been to services even once, and was thrilled to find out she had gone back to the States. Her thrill faded a moment later when Cal told her she'd just gone back on vacation to visit her family in Seattle. Still, Cal did not give up much about her, which had to mean all was not well between Cal and his Japanese-American Princess. She was too old for him, anyway. That thought brought another, that though Cal was far from as mature as herself, he was already more like a grown man than Freddie would ever be. It was an unkind thought to have about Conner's father and a man who really was trying to reform himself, and Kathy knew it. But Kathy also began to realize that, maybe, a man like Freddie was a better match for her than Cal. She doubted she could ever control Cal now, any more than she could control her father.

Kathy was more like her father than her mother. Everyone in Basalt County said that, and Kathy remembered most of them saying it. They also remarked that she seemed more like a boy than a girl, which suited her fine until she was about to enter high school. With no son, and no other children, her father had taught her all he knew. It wasn't that she did not perplex him once she began to turn from a tomboy into a very attractive young woman. It wasn't that she enjoyed getting the upper hand over her father when she could. But...no man would ever measure up to her father.

* * *

August did not turn out to be her best month, after all. On the first Sunday, when the air conditioning had to be set at 85 to avoid tripping the circuit breakers, Miyuki-san brought friends to services, including the _hapu_ with twins and a six-year-old, who was also named "Miyuki." In fact, they used the same _kanji_; there were dozens of ways to render the name—or _any_ given name in Japanese. After the service, little Miyuki proudly wrote out her name, in _kanji_, amazingly well for a first-grader. It was then that Kathy noticed that the child's surname was not "Torsdottir" rendered into Japanese, or "Skuldsdottir" or any other foreign name. "Your name is 'Kawanishi'?" asked Kathy.

"_Un! Kawanishi Miyuki des'ka!"_

Kathy stopped from asking the next obvious question. The child might be old enough, or bright enough, to really understand.

Fortunately big Miyuki had brought quite a few friends, including the older sisters of the _hapu_ mother, and others. Kathy hadn't really paid attention to them, even the sisters, who were very beautiful. There were two humongous and quite scary-looking men, but they were thoroughly whipped by their wives. There was an older couple, and a very old couple. There was an albino woman with a toddler, a little girl who mostly stayed close to her mother or to little Miyuki. There were teachers from big Miyuki's school, most of them seeming to be married or at least coupled. There were also students from her school, and two girls from her former school, a private girl's school. One of them had come before, so Kathy knew it was a very expensive school, the Yurine Academy, which sounded disgusting but actually meant the "lily root" school because it was supposed to nurture girls into proper Japanese women, like lily flowers from tiny bulbs. The one who hadn't come before seemed more of a _wild_flower.

The really bad stuff began when she spotted Heather Saotome kissing Cal. Kathy kept control, and asked big Miyuki, "Did Saotome-san come with you?"

"Saotome-san just arrived," said the mother of the twins.

Kathy swiveled her face to train on Skuld like a gunship's turret onto a fresh target. Kathy was pleased to see that Skuld was not looking back at her. Skuld was looking at Cal being kissed, and she was not happy about it. Kathy thought she had been right; this one _did_ have feelings for Cal, even if she wasn't sure Cal had actually fucked Skuld.

Now Kathy realized everyone nearby was staring at her, even the Japanese who normally would not look directly into a person's face for more than a second or two.

Then Heather Saotome broke the spell by calling out, "I'm sorry, everyone. Forget you saw that, please!" She repeated herself, in Japanese, and almost everyone laughed. Even Kathy managed one half-hearted chuckle. Skuld did not laugh at all, Kathy noted.

Cal's engagement was not a secret at the mission center; it was simply something that was not talked about. When it was talked about, the conversations were unofficial, unrecorded, and generally short. The real damage was to Kathy, and she knew it. The best thing to do was ignore it and go on. Kathy took Heather's hands, subtly maneuvering her husband further away from Cal's fiancee, greeted her warmly, and soon was genuinely absorbed in a discussion about American baseball. They'd both been in Little League, both the only girls on their teams. However, Kathy was not all that happy to learn that Heather had made it into the first round of the national championships.

Heather got a call and left, chasing a story. Kathy went to check on Conner, and found her son asleep—between Skuld's twins. Skuld was thumbing through the mangas. Kathy was still choosing her first words when Skuld spoke, saying: "I remember reading this story just before I kissed Sentarō for the first time."

"Sentarō?" Kathy repeated. "There's a shortstop for the Mariners named Kawanishi Sentarō . He's good."

"Sentarō is Miyuki-chan's father," said Skuld. "And theirs," she added, giving Kathy a brief but very hard look.

"I know you have some kind of history with Cal—my high school boyfriend, Caldwell Young," said Kathy. "Not that it's any of my business, but if you'd like to share, go on, please."

"Young-san has never had sex with me or anyone else," said Skuld. "He has not fallen in love with me."

"And I suppose you have no feelings for him, except for friendship?" said Kathy.

"He is a good man," said Skuld. "It is none of my business, but if you want to tell me, go on. Why did you have your child with a man you did not love?"

"I don't know. Maybe I was trying to make Cal jealous enough to be a man. Maybe I really needed extra help to pass my Japanese language courses. Maybe I even got drunk and woke up pregnant. And, yes, Conner really is my husband's child. I've never had sex with anyone else. How about you?"

"I've had sex with other men," said Skuld. "Are you going to stay married to this husband, or are you going to leave him for Young-san?"

"It would be terrible to leave my husband. It would bring scandal to The Church. My father and my mother would be ashamed."

"Young-san would make a good father for your son."

"Yes, he would," said Kathy. "Freddie makes a good father, too, and he really _is _Conner's father. And if you've forgotten, Cal is going to marry Ms. Saotome, if she goes through with it."

"Why do you think she would not?"

"Because—" Kathy almost blurted, but recovered. Instead, before Skuld might seize control of the conversation Kathy said, "Cal would make a wonderful father for your girls."

"Yes, he would," said Skuld, just as Freddie entered the bedroom with a Japanese woman of a certain age—somewhere closer to Freddie's age than to Kathy's. "_Neh_, _Torus'dottaa!"_ said the woman, laughing.

Freddie sputtered: "Umm, this is..."

* * *

"...Mrs. Oda, Mari-sensei's mother," explained Skuld Torsdottir to Heather Saotome in the big apartment very much later that night.

"I have heard of her from Young-san," said Heather. "One of the mission presidents may have died in bed with her."

"Yes, Mr. Bournemouth," said Skuld.

"Well, anyway, you were saying Kathy-san does not believe, or want to believe, that Caldwell will really marry me. What do you believe?"

"He keeps his promises. But Kathy-san does not believe you will marry him."

"A nice distinction," said Heather. "Maybe the question I really should ask is, do you really want Caldwell to marry me? Not to mention...why are you here at this hour? Where are the kids?"

"Asleep at home."

"Of course they would be. Well, I won't ask you if you just got off work. What's the rest of the story on Kathy Kreisler?"

"She doesn't know anything about _Mizushō_," said Skuld. "She doesn't know I am a prostitute yet. But she will know that we train hosts, hostesses and managers there. Kondo-sensei was talking with the missionary girls."

"And Ayame," said Heather. "Kathy's hubby was really after her, I think. Any chance he might hook up with her later?"

"She sleeps with men she likes sometimes, but not him. I think Ayame might like one of the boys, though," said Skuld.

"Just one?" teased Heather.

"That is a mean thing to say."

"It's on the mark, though, isn't it?" Heather laughed, and Skuld also. Then Heather said, "We're going to wake up Caldwell."

"He will not wake up soon," said Skuld. "You know that myself and my sisters are all witches now that you have met Mishima-sama. I have put a sleeping spell on Caldwell-san."

"Hah! If you could cast sleeping spells, you'd use them on your kids!" said Heather.

"But they are little goddesses," said Skuld. "Goddesses require more difficult spells."

Heather laughed, softly, and then returned to serious matters. "Even if Mrs. Kreisler doesn't find out from the girls or maybe the boys, she's going to find out more about Mizushō. She likes baseball, she's got to know about the Koshien championship game."

"We might not be there this time," said Skuld.

"Even then, they're going to say something about Mizushō during the game. And her husband may be thoroughly whipped, but he's not dumb. He's got to know something about _Kabukichō_ at the least."

"I don't think he does," said Skuld.

Heather retorted, "Oh, come on. He's fluent, he's been here for months, he was in Kyoto for two years—don't tell me he couldn't find the _entertainment_ districts there!"

"He was shocked when Mrs. Oda put her hand inside his pants," said Skuld. "I don't have to read his mind to know that he knows next to nothing about sex. Maybe he thinks that learning to do it better would make it dirty."

"Caldwell believes he's fucked one or two of his students every year since he started teaching."

"Yes, Mara told me that," said Skuld. "But if a teacher picks the right students, it can be easy for him to take them to bed."

"And who would be the right students, wise one?" asked Heather.

Skuld said, "Girls who don't have boyfriends, girls who just broke up, girls who are new and don't know anybody yet. How many girls do you know who fell in love with their teachers? Sawamura Aki-san..."

"Yes? Oh, the woman in the wheelchair. I thought she was one of the teachers."

"She teaches at the primary school now," said Skuld.

"Well? Come on, spill," demanded Heather.

"She once fell in love with a teacher...with Tanabe-sensei," said Skuld.

"Keisuke? Or Akane?" asked Heather.

"Keisuke-san."

"So she must have been one of Mizushō's first students...?" said Heather.

Skuld explained, "No, it was at another school. Tanabe-sensei was kind to her, she was lonely..."

"And they—"

"And they did _not_ fuck. When Aki-san offered herself, Tanabe would not do it. He would never abuse his power over a student. But Aki was really in love, and it ended very badly. Aki almost destroyed herself, and Tanabe was sent to Mizushō. He was really expected to resign, of course. Mizushō was supposed to be a disgraceful place, and many people did not think it would ever actually begin training students for the water trade."

"How did Mizushō get started, I wonder?" speculated Heather as she made herb tea. "I mean...Japan's _different_ about sex matters, light years more evolved than the States, even the West Coast. But still, I just don't see it could have been done."

"Takegawa-dono gave up his soul to building the school, and then the system of schools."

"He's another mystery. I mean, we've got no shortage of horn-dog politicians in the States, but the political guys at my network say that there's a real chance Takegawa will be Prime Minister."

"Yes. He will be a good Prime Minister."

"If and when," said Heather Saotome, giving Skuld the cup without any cracks.

Heather was about to change the subject to either the _Star Trek_ convention at the Space Needle complex or the death of the fourth Saudi king in two years when Skuld said, "I had sex with Sentarō because my sister finally had sex with Keiichi-san. It happened when we were snowed in all together at a place in the mountains."

"Really?" said Heather. "I don't think you had to twist his arm much, did you?"

"I made him do it," said Skuld. "He would never force me or any other girl. Then when his parents found out I was having Miyuki-chan, they sent Sentarō away. They sent him to a boarding school. He was expelled. They sent him to another, and he was expelled again. After the third school, they couldn't afford another boarding school, and Mizushō was the only public school in Tokyo that would take him."

"You mean, his father," said Heather. "It was Sentarō's mother with her when I met him."

"Yes, when you interviewed him," said Skuld. "Even if Waggoner-san had you edited out."

"Then his father—"

"His parents refused to see me, and Miyuki-chan. But they came to the Koshien championship game, and I was there with Miyuki-chan. I was a cheerleader, and Belldandy made a little cheerleader uniform for Miyuki-chan."

"And they saw her, and that was it," said Heather. "Too bad it took so long."

"Miyuki-chan has learned that her father and I can't be with each other."

"Because you have become a _fūzokujō_?" The word meant "prostitute" but it had a better connotation...or at least Heather hoped it did for Skuld.

"It is not a shameful thing to become a _fūzokujō,_" said Skuld. "I am not ashamed of what I learned at Mizushō. No one who does sex work should be called dirty names. Most of all, they should not be called dirty names by their customers."

"Has Sentarō called you a dirty name?"

"No," said Skuld. "He just cannot stand to think of me with another man. And he can't be with me without thinking about that."

"I think he won't be that way forever," offered Heather, retrieving Skuld's cup for the next round of tea.

"Sentarō is mortal," said Skuld. "He doesn't have forever."

"It won't take forever," insisted Heather when she had the new tea ready. But Heather found that Skuld was gone. Caldwell was still sound asleep. Heather thought about waking him up, but decided against it.

* * *

"Did you turn off the alarm?" asked Heather Saotome as soon as her unexpected wake-up call ended.

"No," said Caldwell Young. "Where is it, anyway?"

"I don't know. It's one of those that runs around so you have to get up to turn it off. It's the only kind that works for me. Never mind," said Heather.

"Was that Kathy you were talking to?" asked Caldwell.

"No, it was Hanada-kun. Did you give Kathy Kreisler my number?"

"No."

"I wouldn't put it past her to get it herself. You really dodged a bullet when she dumped you, you know. Crap, it's past eight now. I was hoping you could sneak back in your dorm."

"It wouldn't help."

"Yeah, it probably wouldn't. Well, stay or go, but I have to get to work." Heather called for a taxi.

* * *

Caldwell Young threw on the yukata he'd been examining to answer the door. Instead of the second grandson of the CEO, it was the CEO. "Well, this is unexpected," said the old man, after introducing himself. "I wanted to speak with Ms. Saotome." His English was nearly flawless. "You are Mr. Young?"

"Yes," said Caldwell Young.

"I thought you might be Korean," said the old gentleman. "My wife was Korean. It is not well known here in Japan, of course."

"Saotome-san left for work," explained Caldwell. "It was...some time after eight."

"And there is no clock in this apartment, unless Saotome-san has brought one. It is 8:44 now, perhaps not as late as you thought," said the wealthiest of Japan's many Yamada Tarō's

"I thought you said there was no clock," said Caldwell Young. "I mean, you didn't look at your watch."

"I can't read my expensive watch without my bifocal glasses. But I can read the clock on the building across the street. See? You can't have spent much time here if you didn't know about that clock."

* * *

"When were you going to tell me Cal didn't come back last night?" Kathy Kreisler asked her husband. "Never mind, he just called. He asked if I should come to the center. I told him I didn't care what he did as long as it didn't hurt The Church."

"Where is he? Did he tell you?"

"He's at his girlfriend's apartment. I'm making the Harper girl my personal assistant. It's the same thing Cal did for Kolberg after his first partner went nuts, until Braxton got here. You made a fool of yourself yesterday with that hostess with the big lips. The girls are going to talk about it for a long time. You've got a class to teach in twenty minutes. You won't have to go through the girl's dormitory to get to it."

When her husband let himself out of her office, Kathy Kreisler switched on the TV she had bought the afternoon before. Seeing Heather Saotome's face, she switched it off.

* * *

"If they hadn't blown that game with the Red Sox," said Dick Fertig to Bob Waggoner at that instant on the other side of the Pacific. "They really suck this year, don't they? The Red Sox, I mean."

"Who gave the sports desk to you, Jew-boy?" zinged Waggoner.

"You're mixing me up with Hirschfield again, Bob," referring to the previous station manager. "He's still dead. Are you going to be back by Friday?

"Yeah, I think so, unless one of the Cubs games gets rained out," said Waggoner.

"Rained out? In August?" protested Fertig.

"A storm can blow in from the lake faster than you can believe. They'd have to make it up on Friday or Saturday," said Waggoner.

"I guess you'd know," said Fertig, remembering that Waggoner had come from Chicago a long time ago. Fertig suddenly beamed. "Hey, Bob, you got your TV on?"

"Yeah, why?" asked Waggoner.

"Turn on CNN." suggested Fertig.

After a long pause, Waggoner came back on. "Why would I care about the President of Japan dying?"

"He did? Oh, I meant CN, _Cartoon Network._ Sorry, it's over. I gotta go." He hung up and began chuckling. The point had been that Heather Saotome had been on. Besides being a sure-fire way to irritate Waggoner, it was only right and good to remind Mr. Mariner that the girl he thought he'd stomped like a bug was going to be a player in the industry, someone who might stomp him someday. "And it was the Prime Minister of Japan, Bob, not the President, you ignorant bastard," Fertig said to himself loud enough for one of the summer interns to hear.

* * *

"Who is Takegawa?" asked the President of the United States of America.

"He was the Minister of Education," said her Secretary of State.

"No wonder we've never heard of him," said her Secretary of Education.

Her CIA Director said, "Our sources indicate he was a compromise candidate. Neither one of the leading contenders was willing to accept the other one in his cabinet."

"What's his position on the American bases?" asked her Secretary of Defense.

* * *

"So the Americans don't know anything about them either," said Russia's President to his Minister of Intelligence and Security. "Never mind, they're still talking."

"At least the Russians don't know," said China's President when his Russian interpreter had explained it to him.

* * *

"Is he shorter than me?" asked the President of France.

"He is not noticeably taller," said his Foreign Minister, the same thing he had said about everyone he was reasonably sure would never stand next to his President.

* * *

"I met him in Amsterdam once," said the Chancellor of Germany, pausing to adjust her brassiere.

"Do you know his position? I mean—"

"Not all of them," said the Chancellor to her husband. "And take off that silly hat! There are cameras on the other side of that door, in case you've forgotten."

* * *

Bonnie Harper was the missionary girl who seemed to be around Kathy's husband the most, so she saw her privately in the Presidency office a few hours after Freddie came in with the woman with two buttons already undone. "Do you have any special feelings for my husband?" she began.

"No!" said Harper.

"That's nice to hear," said Kathy Kreisler. "I notice you spend more time around him than any of the other girls on their missions—and that your partner isn't always there."

"We hardly ever leave the mission center," said Harper.

"Yes. There are reasons for that, good ones, which I'm not going to explain to you, also for good reasons." This was mostly a bluff; she did not know why none of the female missionaries had been sent out to knock on doors and hand out tracts for at least ten years; everything else had disappeared in the lost or corrupted computer records, and there was no paper on it. "What exactly happened yesterday? What was my husband doing? And Mrs. Oda, do you know who I'm talking about?"

"Mrs. Nagasawa's mother," said Harper.

"Go on. Tell me all of it," prompted Kathy.

"Everything?"

"Everything!" demanded Kathy.

"Well..." Bonnie Harper began. "Mrs. Oda stuck her hand inside his trousers."

"Really? And what exactly was my husband doing before that?" asked Kathy Kreisler.

Harper, a big girl who hadn't given a bit of trouble before, balled up her fists and said: "He was trying to talk up the hostess with the big lips and the tight dress. Ask any of the other girls if you don't believe me. Or call the hostess. She gave out cards. She said if we stay in Japan, she can find us good jobs as hostesses."

"Really? Are you interested?" asked Kathy.

"Yes," hissed Bonnie Harper. "It's my lifelong dream to pour drinks and light cigarettes for fat old guys while getting groped and pretending to listen to their stories."

"Think it over. It's not all that different from being married," said Mrs. Kreisler.

"Maybe your marriage," Harper said to herself after leaving the office.


	13. Chapter 12 The Second September First

On September 1:

in 1159 Nicholas Breakspear died, and there hasn't been a second English pope so far.

in 1244 Kujō Yoritsune the fourth shogun of the Kamakura dynasty died.

In 1532 Lady Anne Boleyn still had her head, and her boyfriend King Harry made her the Marchioness of Pembroke

In 1644 James Graham, 5th Earl of Montrose, won the Battle of Tippermuir for his king, Charles I of Scotland and England. Later King Chuck got his head whacked off and Jimmy was hanged, leaving behind a toast: "He either fears his fate too much, Or his desserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To win or lose it all!" Contact Dr. Jerry Pournelle if you'd like to know why it would be nice if more people knew who Lord Montrose was than who know who Lady Gaga is.

In 1715 King Louis XIV of France died after being king for 72 years, leaving France to his great-grandson, Louis XV. Despite being King of France, Louis XIV definitely had some balls. He proved it not only by fathering a remarkable number of children, some of them legitimate, but also by turning a big chunk of Germany into more of France, a chunk that is still French. Of course, while this Louis spoke French, so did just about every white guy who could write down his own name. His Mom was Anne of Austria, who, of course, was Spanish. His father was supposed to be Louis XIII, but since the great love of Louis XIII was Cardinal Richelieu, his father just might have been George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, who probably swung both ways. Or maybe it was Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian protege of the great Richelieu, which could explain the Sun King's king-size nose and other appendages as well. Even if the fourteenth Louis really was the son of the thirteenth Louis, that Louis had an Italian mom, so Louis, 14th Edition, was either a half or a quarter French.

In 1772 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was founded, providing a great way to infect the Native Americans of California with fatal diseases and a great place to find a hotel before you visit the Hearst Castle. It takes a full day to take all four tours.

In 1804 a German astronomer discovered Juno, one of the largest known asteroids.

In 1836 Narcissa Whitman arrived in Walla Walla, Washington to help found a Methodist mission to the Native Americans. Eleven years, one month, and 29 days later, as Native American children were dying of measles, some of their parents noticed that the white children with measles being treated by Narcissa's husband, Dr. Marcus Whitman, did not seem to be dying at all, or at least nearly as often. They killed the grown-up Whitmans that day, beginning the Cayuse War, which went on for eight years.

In 1864 General John Bell Hood abandoned Atlanta. This ensured that Abraham Lincoln would be re-elected, that Confederate States of America would not win independence, and that slavery would end in North America, at least in any legal form.

In 1923 the Great Kantō earthquake struck Tokyo, killing more than 100,000 and wrecking the half-built hull of the battlecruiser _Amagi _so badly it was scrapped, though there had been plans to complete it as an aircraft carrier. Instead, a half-built battleship, _Kaga_ was substituted. Eighteen years, three months, and seven days later, _Kaga, _along with _Amagi_'s intended sister _Akagi_ and four newer aircraft carriers, launched planes to bomb Pearl Harbor.

In 1939 Adolph Hitler pointed Germany at Poland and pulled the trigger, ending the "peace in our time" British Prime Neville Chamberlain announced at on the last day of the previous September.

In 1945, Japan was waiting for the capitulation ceremony aboard the USS _Missouri_ on the morrow. Some Japanese took their quietus rather than see the next morning.

In 1983 Gennedi Opisovich shot down Korean Air Flight 007. Along with the Russian government, he was still insisting in 2010 that the Boeing 747 was over Soviet (now Russian) territory, despite the recovery of some artifacts and passenger remains on Hokkaido. Among the dead or missing are a United States Congressman and an eight month old girl from New York City, Borough of the Bronx.

In 2010 the 45th Yokozuna, Wakanoha Kanji I, passed away at age 82. The current Yokuzuna, or Grand Champion of Sumo, of this day was Asashōryū Akinori, who was born in Mongolia. Asashōryū had retired by this time.

* * *

"Wakey wakey," said Caldwell Young's personal demon.

"You're back," said Caldwell, yawning.

"I had my alarm set for September," said the tiny demon. "Your girlfriend's not here."

"Funny," said Caldwell Young.

"What's funny?" asked the new guy in Taylor's old bunk.

"The little demon on my shoulder. Can't you see her?" asked Caldwell Young.

"No," said the new guy.

The demon fluttered over to the new guy's shoulder, and made a show of talking into his ear.

"Can't hear her either?" asked Caldwell Young.

"No."

"Psych." He extended his right hand. "Caldwell Young, from Idaho."

"Henry Stewart, from New Mexico. Sorry about the hooks."

"Maybe he's a pirate re-enactor," said the demon.

"When did you lose your hands?" asked Caldwell Young.

"Last year, in the blizzards. I was down in Fukuoka. I sort of lost an argument with a truck, got knocked out, and woke up in a hospital. I lost half my toes, too, and this, of course." Stewart used one of his hook-prostheses to touch his badly reconstructed nose.

"What about your partner?"

"I guess he got lost in the storm," said Stewart. "He called my mom a few weeks ago. I'm from Taos, by the way."

"How long will you be here this time?" asked Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V, recently returned from the bathroom.

"I don't know," said Stewart. "I've got a new passport and a new visa, so I guess I could be here for five years. Seven months, at least, to get in my two years."

"Really? You must have come here just one year before I did," said Caldwell.

"Maybe we'll be on the same plane back," said Stewart.

"If Caldwell goes back, yeah," said Braxton.

"My fiancee lives here in Japan," explained Caldwell.

"And she's a great fuck," stage-whispered Caldwell's demon, apparently directly into Stewart's ear.

"You're going to marry a Japanese girl?" asked Stewart.

"She's from Seattle," said Braxton. "If she isn't working, she'll probably be here for services in a little while."

* * *

"Yes, she's a television reporter. Quite a lot older than our Mr. Young," said the mission president's wife to Henry Stewart. "I handle a lot of work for my husband. It may be a different arrangement from what you got used to in Fukuoka. You have good marks in Japanese. Can you really speak with the natives? They really don't talk at all like in the textbooks most of the time."

"I was doing pretty well in Fukuoka," said Stewart. "The _Kantō_ dialect is different, but I watched a lot of Japanese TV over the last year. It's what all their reporters use, and most of the actors. The dialect around the capital of a country always becomes the standard for "proper" speech."

"That's what my husband says," said the mission president's wife. "He's been teaching college-level Japanese for most of his life."

"Mr. Tanabe is from Fukuoka," said Stewart. "He still uses some of the dialect. He's—"

"One of the teachers from Sakuma-san's high school," interrupted Mrs. Kreisler "He comes with Sakuma-san almost every Sunday, with his family. His wife is also a teacher at Sakuma-san's school."

Stewart said, "Brother Braxton tells me they will marry as soon as he finishes his mission obligation."

"Actually they already are married," said the mission president's wife. "Not in The Church, of course, but they have a marriage license. Everyone here knows about it, and no one talks about it, or is supposed to talk about it. You wouldn't have a wife somewhere, would you, Brother Stewart?"

"No."

Mrs. Kreisler said, "That's good. None of the other missionaries has a spouse. Boyfriends and girlfriends, but no other secret marriages so far. Are you familiar with a place in Fukuoka called 'Nakasu?'"

Stewart answered, "Yes. Excuse me, but are you asking me if I had sex with prostitutes?"

"Have you?"

"No."

"That's very nice to hear. Do you know about a special high school in Nakasu, or near it?" asked the mission president's wife.

Stewart answered, "Yes. They have a high school there that trains girls to be prostitutes. There are others in Japan."

Mrs. Kreisler said, "Yes. The first one was built here in Tokyo. Someone burned it down but they rebuilt it, even bigger. Mr. Tanabe teaches at that school. Braxton's wife is a third-year student in their _fūzoku_ program. Mrs. Nagasawa finished the same program. None of the other Japanese girls you met today are _fūzokujō_ apprentices, but they all are students at that school. Mrs. Kurosawa is the head of their department. She was one of the top-earning Hostesses in Japan in her day. The economy was better back then, of course. The school is in Kabukichō."

"I've heard of that place. Where is it, exactly?" asked Stewart.

Mrs. Kreisler said, "It's part of Shinjuku Ward. Only three of our missionaries have ever worked there for more than a day, and one of them went nuts."

"And the other two?" asked Stewart.

Mrs. Kreisler said, "One of them married a prostitute and the other one is supposed to marry a reporter from Seattle he's been screwing for the last few weeks. My husband and I think you might do some good in Kabukichō. The Japanese government hasn't given us permits for more than two missionaries to solicit there, but maybe they won't bother a third one with no hands."

"What about my new partner?" asked Stewart.

Mrs. Kreisler said, "Take him along and see what happens. We've never gotten a complaint against him. Tag along with Cal. I'm sure you'll be okay."

"Should I begin tonight?" asked Stewart.

"No, in the morning," said the mission president's wife. "Tell Brother Hill I'd like to see him now."

* * *

"Tell him where Zeke is," said Caldwell Young's demon. "He's afraid to ask you."

Caldwell said quietly to Henry Stewart, "Brother Braxton is at my girlfriend's apartment. This is the only night he can be together with Miyuki-san. We'll meet up with him at the Shinjuku Station in the morning. Or at the McDonalds we always eat at."

Joe Hill, Henry Stewart's new partner, said, "These guys are never here for breakfast except maybe on Sunday. Just what is it you do, Brother Young?"

Caldwell's demon made a big show of yawning.

Caldwell started to explain: "We can't go knocking on doors. You must assume that foreigners are not welcome at any place you need to knock, or ring a doorbell, or pass by a doorkeeper. Assume that anyone standing by a doorway is a doorkeeper, even if they seem to be just talking to someone, or using their cellphone, or eating a snack."

"Can we hand out tracts?" asked Stewart.

"Braxton and I can, we have permits that say we can. You shouldn't. It's kind of a sore point. There are laws and regulations about soliciting people. Sometimes the police enforce them, and sometimes they don't. Police have been coming down on Hosts trying to make catches in Kabukichō and the other entertainment districts."

"Catches?" asked Hill. "Hosts of what?"

"The male equivalent of bar hostesses," explained Stewart. "Go on, please."

"A 'catch' is bringing a new customer to the bar you work for. Hostesses sometimes do the same thing, but not so often, and men don't seem to complain about it very much for some mysterious reason. Women do complain, quite a lot, and I guess it looks good to have the police arresting some Hosts out on the streets. Anyway, seeing us handing out our tracts when police are arresting Hosts for handing out their brochures brings out bad feelings, and even some fistfights. All the hosts who can make their living know how to fight. And if a fight involves a foreigner, it is _always_ the fault of the foreigner. Remember that," emphasized Caldwell Young.

* * *

"Is the new boy from India?" asked Miyuki Braxton.

"He's not that kind of Indian," said Exekiel Bradbury Braxton V. "He's from New Mexico, so I guess he's probably Navajo. There are many Navajo in The Church. There was a Navajo boy in my primary school. He was adopted, so he didn't know anything about his culture except what he had read. The language is supposed to be very difficult to learn."

Miyuki said, "I saw a movie once where Navajo people were used to send secret messages. It was supposed to be in the war between Japan and America. Was any of that true?"

Zeke said, "Yes, it was true. There were some Indians in Europe who did the same thing. Not Navajo, I think. There are many, many Indian languages. Or there used to be. Most of them have died out."

Miyuki said, "Because your Indians died?"

Zeke said, "An awful lot of them did, mostly from diseases my people brought from the Old World. But the languages are dying out because the children don't grow up speaking them any more. For a long time, our government took Indian children away to boarding schools where they were not allowed to speak their own languages, only English. The Church helped them—helped our government, I mean. And the other churches, many of them...it worked, mostly. Only a few tribes have held on to their languages, mostly because they are the biggest ones. The Navajo are one of the largest tribes. They have their own government, something like one of our state governments, or at least like a big city or an important county. They have a lot of land, even if it is mostly desert. They don't have to be around white people who speak English if they don't want to be."

"We have some people here in Japan that are something like your Indians," said his Miyuki.

"The Ainu?" prompted Zeke.

Miyuki said, "Yes. They all live in Hokkaido now, but once they lived over much of Japan. Even here. Some of my people are ashamed of what was done to the Ainu."

Zeke said, "Actually, some scientists believe that your Ainu and the people we call our Indians—Native Americans, now—are most closely related to the Ainu. But there may not be any pure Ainu or any pure Native Americans left, or enough to be sure with genetic science."

Miyuki said, "But your church teaches that your Indians are the lost tribes of Israel, doesn't it?"

"Yes," said Zeke Braxton. "Who's to say the Ainu didn't come from Israel, or at least some of them? The Assyrians made many of them slaves, and some of them could have been sold in the East. The first Israel fell centuries before your people came to Japan, and a man can walk from Baghdad to Pusan or Vladivostok in a few years. The man could build a boat, or buy a boat, or work passage on a boat, or steal a boat."

Miyuki asked, "Do you believe your Indians were once the lost tribes of Israel?"

"No," said Zeke Braxton. "We'd better get some sleep. School for you in the morning, and mission work for me."

* * *

"There are only two of those people with permits to solicit here," said the latest sergeant to be placed over Officer Sawamura and the rest of his squad. "Why do I see four, Sawamura-kun?"

"I see only two," said Detective Lieutenant Arima, without looking.

"It looks like only two," said Officer Kotobuki's father, the Chief of Detectives of the Metropolitan Police before his retirement. "My eyes are not as they were, but this is a new prescription," he added, minutely adjusting his glasses. "Nakajima-san, do you know one of those young men?"

"Yes," Nakajima Miyuki answered.

"How would you know one of those people?" asked the sergeant.

"She knows the man through me," erupted Yamada Tarō. "Send that fool away!"

* * *

Caldwell Young saw a crow, maybe, fly down behind the police. He thought for a moment it might be his demon, but he saw her reflection in a window, hovering over his head, wings beating like a hummingbird's. A second crow—or a raven, it was a large bird—came down. And then he saw the _shinigami _of his dreams_, _dressed as a carhop, roller-skating through the unseeing cops, including the ones trying to chase away the carrion birds. A gust from the gap between buildings the cops were guarding brought the odors to Caldwell's nose, and the odors took him back through time and space to a colder autumn, a sage hen, frost becoming dew, and the smell of his father's shotgun as he ejected the empty shell.

"Gunsmoke," said Henry Stewart. "I wonder who's the old man who just yelled?"

"Yamada Tarō," said Caldwell Young. "One of the richest men in Japan." His demon dug out his cellphone and put it in his right hand, and he texted the old man.

"Should we go talk to him?" asked Zeke Braxton.

"That don't seem like a good idea, what with all those cops around him," said Joe Hill. "You can really smell gunsmoke, Chief?"

"Not with this nose," said Stewart. "It's an old TV show. There was a cranky old doctor in it, and that old man reminds me of him. And, Brother Hill, you're right. We should get out of Dodge. Brother Young?"

"Yes," said Caldwell, closing his mission-issued cellphone.

"Miyuki-san?" prompted Zeke Braxton. "Miyuki?"

His Miyuki said, "I must go to the school now," and hurried off toward Mizushō.

* * *

"If I may ask, how do you know Chief Kotobuki?" asked Detective Lieutenant Arima.

"We were police officers," said Tsujimoto, the old man's other female bodyguard. "We met in Los Angeles."

"Yes," said the eldest Kotobuki present. "I'm afraid the details of the operation are still classified."

"I understand," said Lieutenant Arima politely. "May I have private words with you, Kotobuki-sama?" They went to Arima's car. The rookie officer serving as Arima's driver exited. Arima wasted no words. "We agree that the primary suspect must be the second grandson, yes?"

"Murder is so often a family matter," responded the more experienced investigator. "But not so much premeditated murder. I think this was carefully planned."

"Why? A shotgun was used, the most common type of firearm in Japan and the only type a civilian could reasonably obtain, even a very rich civilian," said Arima. "The older grandson has no more connections with criminal organizations than one would expect of any man with his power and wealth. Leaving the body to be found in Kabukichō will bring pressure on all yakuza, not just Matsuura-sama's family. And Matsuura-sama's people would war mercilessly on any other family who would contrive this outrage to make trouble for them. I think yakuza would have made the body vanish, or left it in a neutral location."

"It looks as if the barrel of the gun was pressed against the victim. The victim would have absorbed nearly all the blast. That might mean the noise was muffled. I think you should run a simulation to confirm that. I think it should be made public as soon as it is done. Go on," said the retired Chief of Detectives.

"I would rather hear what you think about the rest of my indictment of the younger grandson," said Arima.

"It is more than enough to begin interrogating a suspect," said Kotobuki Taizō. "I could get the man to confess."

"You know the younger grandson?"

"Not at all. I could get _you_ to confess. But of course, you didn't do the crime," said the more experienced interrogator. "One should also consider whether any other police officer in Japan would interrogate the second son without the consent of the grandfather."

"Murder should have no class distinctions," said Arima. "Why else do you think this murder was carefully planned?"

"You saw cameras at both ends of that gap," said Kotobuki Taizō.

Lieutenant Arima said, "They are fakes. Even if they weren't, their cables have both been cut."

Kotobuki Taizō said, "My daughter told me about the cables. They can be reached by almost any fit adult without standing on anything. It's the cables that are the thief traps. The connectors are simple plug-ins, not locking or screw-in types. And they are lubricated with petroleum jelly so they will more easily slip out. Pulling out either end of either cable out will activate a silent alarm at the nearest police box and at the main station. But someone bothered to cut the cables instead, so the alarm was not tripped."

"How long have you known this?" asked Detective Lieutenant Arima after punching the seat ahead of him hard enough to ratchet it to the full-forward position.

"My daughter texted me while you were talking with Yamada-sama. I didn't want to say anything about it while the sergeant was close enough to hear. She knew because Officer Sawamura once stopped her from checking the cables—he set off the thief trap years ago when he first started working here. Why are you so angry with yourself?"

"I should have examined the cables myself," said Arima. "If they are freshly cut, your theory of the case is correct. The sergeant wouldn't know about the trap because he just transferred here. The captain wouldn't know because it's a detail that no one above the sergeant in charge should be concerned with unless there was a serious crime involved."

Kotobuki Taizō said, "No matter. It would have come out. You can't do everything yourself."

Noticing that the older detective was sounding distracted, Arima looked up from the carpeting and saw Kotobuki reading the screen of his cell. "It's Ran-chan again," said the father of two police officers and father-in-law of another, smiling. But his smile quickly faded. "Matsuura just asked to see the body before it is taken away."

"She called? Who would she call? Not your daughter!"

"Matsuura is there, now," said Kotobuki Taizō. "She can still walk," he added in wonder.

* * *

"Cal, did you hear the news?" asked Kathy Kreisler as soon as Caldwell Young answered.

"I didn't hear it, I saw it, I think," said Cal.

"What do you mean?" asked Kathy.

"I'm in Kabukichō," said Cal.

"That's where you're supposed to be. Anyway, I really called to tell you Freddie's parents are here," said Kathy.

After a moment, Cal said: "That _is_ news. You mean, they're in Tokyo?"

"I mean they're here at the center. Stay out as late as you can—stay over with your girlfriend if you can. You're a complication I don't want my husband's folks to know about. Not yet, not here, maybe not ever."

"What about the others?" asked Cal.

There was a pause before Kathy Kreisler spoke to Caldwell again. "I forgot about Stewart and what's his name. But just _do_ it, OK? Oh, one more thing. The news news is about the Mars expedition."

* * *

There were monitor screens at the largest McDonalds in Kabukichō. Even on the day the last Prime Minister of Japan had suddenly died all they had ever shown were cartoons suitable for all ages and ads for McDonalds, but on the second morning of the second September Caldwell Young spent in Japan they were showing Heather Saotome. Caldwell sat down next to an old white man wearing an all-sizes ball cap. The old man began to talk, saying: "I don't suppose you'd know what that gal up there on TV is saying."

"She's saying something about the Mars expedition," explained Caldwell as his demon flew up and turned up the volume.

"Is she saying anything new?" asked the old man, swiveling on his round, backless stool as far as he could without touching Caldwell. He was larger than the Japanese customer profile used by the architects and wider than any of the four missionaries now seated on his right.

"I don't know," said Caldwell. "Tell me what you already know."

"When she was talkin' American she said that Houston said there was a problem. That's about all Houston said, she said. And then she started talkin' Jap-ah-knees," said the old man, stopping for a deep breath, "And one of the pretty little gals workin' here came by with a little ladder, climbed up there, and turned down the volume so much it weren't matter what the pretty gal up there was speakin' American or not. D'ja fellers turn it back up? I hain't see you."

"He didn't see me," said Caldwell's demon, between sips from the stirrer/straw she was using to steal some of the old man's coffee. The old man reached for the cardboard cup without looking, and the little demon put it in his liver-spotted arthritis-wracked left hand. The ring finger ended at the first joint.

Caldwell explained to the old man: "Heather says that when the spaceship went behind Mars we couldn't hear from it any more. The man's voice was a recording. It was Captain Kazami, and he was speaking Japanese. Kazami is the commander, and he got to pick the name of the spaceship. _Kasei_ means 'Mars' in Japanese. That's how those big characters are sounded. The one on the top is 'fire' and the one on the bottom is 'star'."

"What about the gal with the short skirt and the long legs and that bow-and-arrow made out of fire?" asked the old man.

"I don't know," said Caldwell. "Maybe a Disney character? Heather isn't saying anything about that. Anyone know who the girl on the mission patch is?"

"I do! I do!" The demon was in a school uniform now, sitting at an invisible desk, holding up one arm and bracing it with her other.

"Anyone? Anyone?" repeated Caldwell Young.

* * *

Sawamura Midori was at home when the strange woman rang the doorbell. Midori already had company: Takei Midori, an older mother who was also a patient of Dr. Yahagi, the most highly regarded obstetrician practicing in Japan, at least in the opinion of the younger Midori's mother. Dr Yahagi had also delivered the younger Midori, and so far he had delivered four of her children. Dr. Yahagi would have delivered two more as well if Miika and Miina hadn't been fated to be born in Tokyo Disneyland instead of Dr. Yahagi's hospital. Like most other people in Japan as morning became afternoon who didn't have pressing work that demanded complete attention, these two Midoris watched or listened or surfed the web to find out what had happened to _Kasei,_ the first manned spacecraft to reach Mars, commanded by a man of Japan, Kazami Yamato. People around the world were doing the same thing, particularly in China, Russia, India, France, the United States of America, Germany, and Iceland, most particularly among the families of the other astronauts and cosmonauts of _Kasei._

Sawamura Midori found the woman talking with Miika and Miika, her oldest children, third-graders now, and to Miho, in first grade, and Miyo, in kindergarten. They all went to the same school, in easy walking distance from their home even for little legs. Preschooler Miyu, home because of some tummy trouble in the early morning, was already at the door, waiting for her mother to open it. Mie was crawling toward it; she could still crawl faster than she could walk. There was another little girl with the woman, who was albino. "I am Sawamura Midori. Did you bring my daughters home from school?" They were home early.

"No. All these girls are your daughters?" said the strange foreign woman not only in Japanese, but in the dialect peculiar to descendents of Satsuma samurai who had moved to the new Imperial capital during the Meiji Restoration, providing officers for the new Imperial Navy, administrators for the Naval Ministry, managers and mid-level executives for new industries to build and support the Navy, and teachers for children who would follow the others as generation succeeded generation. The Imperial Navy was no more, but families who had been its vital organs carried on, many in prosperity if not quite enough wealth to be toadied to from the instant they were correctly identified. One of those families used the name "Kasugano" and two Kasuganos, fourth cousins, had married, prospered, bought a large house in a nice neighborhood close by one of the _exclusive_ neighborhoods. They had only one child, a girl. And while that girl had married a man with no more pedigree than a puppy found in a cardboard box, she had popped out six daughters so far, filling the large house with so much love and promise for the future and noise in the present that the adoring grandparents had taken an apartment, within walking distance, but beyond shouting distance. One of the maids was still living at the house, but she was visiting her sister in Hawaii.

"Yes," said Sawamura Midori, once Kasugano Midori, going on to introduce each of her six girls.

The stranger said, "This is Hiyo, my only daughter so far. I see you do not remember me. I was at your husband's police station when you visited. My name is Mara. May I come in?"

"Yes, of course you may," said Midori.

The elder Midori had not left her seat. She was still nursing her infant. While Takei Midori did not rise for the new guest, she did bow her head as she introduced herself. "Forgive me, but I can't remember where I have seen you before. I am sure I have."

"I am older than I look, or so I have been told," said Mara, taking the seat offered by the younger Midori. "Would you be perhaps related to Takei Toshihito?"

"Yes, by marriage," said the elder Midori.

"I have heard a rumor that Toshihito-san is married," said Mara.

"I've heard that rumor too," said Toshihito-san's wife.

"It can't be true," said Mara. "Hosts are never married. Is your baby a boy or a girl?"

The elder Midori said, "A boy. His name is Toshihiro."

"Is he your first child?" asked Mara.

"My second. My daughter Sayuka is in middle school now. May I presume on Sawamura-san and ask why you are here?" asked Takei Midori.

The demon said, "I have business with Seiji-san which would be better done here than in Kabukichō."

"You know my husband?" asked the younger Midori.

"Not in the way you might be thinking," said Mara. "Does Seiji-san want to have a son to go along with his daughters?"

Sawamura Midori blushed very deeply.

Takei Midori said, "You are not Japanese, are you?"

"No," answered Mara.

Takei Midori said, "Then you did not learn when you were a child that it is not polite to use personal names of people who are not in your own family."

"If I did not call him 'Seiji-san' how would you know I did not mean Midori, or Miika, or Miina, or Miyo, or Miho, or Miyu, or Mie instead? Or perhaps Sawamura Rin?" said Mara.

Takei Midori asked herself "How does this woman know about Seiji's sister?" but she did not ask the woman aloud.

Sawamura Midori preempted her elder namesake by asking, "Is 'Mara' your family name? Or is it your personal name?"

Mara answered in English: "It is different among those of my ilk," said Mara. "As Sukurudo-san is Skuld Torsdottir, so I am Mara Lokisdottir. But please call me 'Mara.' In fact, I insist."

"Mara-san," said Sawamura Midori. "I mean—"

"That will do," said Mara, laying a gentle hand on Sawamura Midori's slightly trembling shoulder.

Takei Midori could read most English, and speak it well enough to give tourists directions, but she did not understand half of what Mara had said. The woman knew Sukurudo-san or knew who she was; that was it for the content. The subtext was quite clear to the elder Midori: the strange foreign woman had just frightened her friend.

* * *

Little Mara, Caldwell Young's familiar demon, had vanished sometime during his long conversation with the lonely old man he'd met in McDonalds, and now he found himself wishing she would manifest again, because she might tell him something new about the police detective beginning to interrogate him. "Only a few questions," but he was alone with the detective, and he suspected that each of the three other missionaries the police had picked up with him were also alone, so they could not share stories.

The detective began by saying, "Death seems to follow you, Young-san. First one of your priests dies, and then a young man who slept in a bed next to your own. And this morning, you passed by a crime scene and sent a text message to the father of the victim."

"How did you—" Caldwell Young began to say. "You know from phone records."

"So, you texted Yamada-sama using your cellphone. Do you remember what you wrote?"

"I asked if I could help. He thanked me for my offer."

"And?"

"Nothing else," said Caldwell Young.

"And how do you know Yamada-sama?" asked Detective Lieutenant Arima.

"The woman I am going to marry works for him," said Caldwell Young.

"What is her name?" asked the Lieutenant.

"Heather Saotome."

"The reporter?" asked the Lieutenant.

"Yes."

"I meant her real name, not her performing name," said Lieutenant Arima.

"Her real name is Heather Maria Saotome. She is an American citizen, born in Seattle."

"She does not have a Japanese name?" asked Arima.

"Like a Hebrew name?" asked Caldwell Young.

"Hebrew name? What do you mean?" asked Lieutenant Arima.

Caldwell Young explained, "Jews have Hebrew names—religious names. Sometimes they don't know them. Many Jews never practice their religion. But if they have parents or grandparents who do keep the ways of their faith, they will give their children or grandchildren names in Hebrew that they may use if they ever return to their faith. It is something like when a Buddhist monk or priest takes a new name—or a death name? Do I have that right?"

Arima said, "Some of our people give new names to family members who have died. You are more familiar with our culture than most foreign people I have met, especially Americans."

"Thank you," said Caldwell Young. "We can hardly hope to win people to our faith if we know nothing of what you believe."

Arima said, "Well put. Many Americans seem to think that what people who are not Americans feel and believe does not matter."

"The same thing has been said of the people of Japan," said Caldwell Young. "And of China, of England, of Russia, of Germany, and so on."

"_Hai_," which might or might not mean the Detective Lieutenant agreed. "Yamada-sama has many, many people working for his companies. Even many reporters. How is it that he would know this reporter well enough to know you through her?"

Caldwell Young thought before he responded. "Saotome-san is not a mistress of Yamada-sama. But she has been given the use of a large apartment owned by one of Yamada-sama's companies by the head of TBK."

"Can you explain this generosity?" asked the detective.

Caldwell Young said, "Gorō-san has romantic feelings toward Saotome-san. She has never slept with him, however."

"Is that what Saotome-san told you?" asked the the detective.

"Yes, and I believe her," said Caldwell Young. "Gorō-san may join my church. He has attended services Saotome-san has not."

"So...where did you first meet Yamada-sama?" asked the detective.

"At the large apartment," said Caldwell Young. He was certain Lieutenant Arima already knew the answers to many of the questions.

His watch and phone had been taken, and there was no clock in the room. There was no window—except for the "mirror" on one wall. It was on the large side for any Japanese room, large enough to feel the emptiness that should be filled by something. The table was narrow, so narrow that the detective sitting opposite had to place his chair to one side in order to have room for his legs. He could not have sat at normal distance from the table facing Caldwell; their knees would have bumped, or they would have touched below the table in inappropriate, disturbing ways.

"Was Nakajima-san with Yamada-sama when you first met?" asked the lieutenant, looking down into a folder with one side up—the side closer to Caldwell Young, so he could not possibly read what was inside the folder.

* * *

Takei Toshihito normally worked at one of the three Host clubs he owned wholly or in part for a few hours on school nights unless he was holding an evening exercise at the school. If it was the one in Roppongi or the one in the Ginza, he would go home first, have supper, and then go on to the club. If it was the one in Kabukichō, he went to the club directly from the school, a walk of only a few blocks. On _Kasei_ day, as it would be marked each year in Japan hence, he went to his club in Kabukichō. By the time he arrived, he had almost decided what to do. Miyazaki Issei, acting as the Host in charge, was from the very first class to complete the Host program at Mizushō. Miyazaki bowed and said, "I apologize for the lack of customers, Takei-sensei. We have been cautioned by the police several times not to attempt catches today."

"There are no catches to make," said Takei. "I did not see any woman who was not with a man, or was a foreigner, or was in the doorway of a Hostess club or a _fūzoku_ shop looking for a customer. Are there any women in the ladies room?"

"No. All are here."

All the women in the club were at the largest table, which was shaped like the letter "C", the missing arc allowing for a few chairs in the center, or free access for waiters, or a venue for performance: a song, or a story, or jokes. Or just a good place to speak to all the people seated around the outer edge of the largest table in the club. There were five women, and two hosts, and one empty chair that Miyazaki stood behind as Takei took the center. "All you ladies are Mizushō alumni, so all of you know my secret. I'm closing the club for tonight, at least for any more customers. You are welcome to stay until midnight, as always, but I would appreciate it if you either go home now, or come with me to my home. I'm going to the office now. I think I will need about twenty minutes to finish things. And one more thing: each of you may have one food item and one beverage from the _Host's_ menu free of charge."

"Does that invitation go for us too?" asked Sadakawa, the only host who had not been in Takei's program at Mizushō.

"The menu, yes. Coming to my home..." he hesitated. "My home is not as large as this club. But any of you ladies who chooses to come with me tonight may bring along one, and _only_ one, host."

"Auction! Auction!" called out the woman who was closest to being drunk. The one who was furthest was the only Hostess; her friends were all _fūzokujō_, sex workers.

As he left the revelers and started toward the tiny, hard-to-find office, he switched altogether from his Host persona to his real self. "No one is going anywhere until this place is ready to open for business tomorrow!" Once inside the office, he used the office phone to call his wife. Cell reception in his club was very poor; a feature, not a defect.

Two minutes later Takei emerged from his office. The hosts, even Miyazaki-san, were all either beginning to clean up the club, or were serving the women. "Plans have changed," he called out, and when everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward Takei he went on: "All of you, we're going to surprise a friend of my wife! Her friend lives in a big house! Room for everyone! Grab your coats! We're leaving now!"

Everyone else cheered, but the Hostess did not put her heart into it. She detected that Takei-sensei's cheerfulness was acting—very good acting, but acting. Miyazaki also knew that his _sensei_ had just put on a performance, but did not suspect it covered up anything more than a mild scolding from his wife. Miyazaki was the only one present who not only knew of Takei Midori but knew her, as a friend. Miyazaki's guess was that Midori had given her husband an earful for qualifying his invitation. Although Midori had never said it in so many words to Miyazaki Issei, he knew Midori wanted her husband to stop being a Host as well as a teacher and employer of Hosts. Sakuya's feelings about this _were_ explicit and unsurprising to everyone around Takei Toshihito except Toshihito himself, and while the reason for Sakuya's undiplomatic directness was something the sixth-grader was still concealing from her father and believing that she was concealing it from her mother, Miyazaki Issei had inferred it correctly. Takei Sakuya had acquired her first serious boyfriend. Beyond that was speculation. Miyazaki Issei was a superb host because he really wanted to make women happy, but not really outstanding at anything else. He had no talent at all for fortune telling.

* * *

The Kreisler family was aware of the unfolding tragedy of _Kasei_, and sympathetic, but not very interested. None of them had ever been _Star Trek_ or _Star Wars_ fans. Frederick Kriesler had never built a model airplane, or wanted to. He'd only made three journeys by air in his entire life. His father Gunnar had just made his first. Gunnar and his wife Alison agreed that nearly all money spent on space was wasted, and even harmful. Satellites for weather and communications were worthwhile, but even they were a mixed blessing, because they had brought indecency and godless science to every part of the world through television and the internet. Reading the Creation from "Genesis" from above the moon's surface did not make up for "proof" that the Creation was only a well-written story, God could not possibly have created the universe as it is no more than ten thousand years ago, even if He had said so. No, it was four, or five, or ten, or fifteen billion—the rocks from the moon "proved" it.

Kathy and Frederick, being of two later generations, had more evolved views. Neither one thought that however long Earth had abided or if humans and monkeys were in the same family tree proved or disproved the existence of God. Neither believed that The Church's scriptures had all come from the hand of the Almighty, forever unchanged, unchanging, unchangeable. Neither one of them had the tiniest intention of leaving The Church. Maybe some things encompassed by The Church were hard to swallow; maybe some things really needed to be changed, someday. Already some quite large things had been changed inside The Church, and except for a few thousand dissenters attempting to "restore" The Church as they saw it, The Church was as strongly united as when it had been driven from place to place to place by force of arms, and built a new Zion out of a wilderness as unyielding and unforgiving as the first Zion's or the later Zion resurrected on the bones of the first.

There was an early evening prayer service for the crew of the lost spaceship. It had a large attendance, including many people who had never come to the mission center before. Some were Americans, mostly tourists but including some living and working in Tokyo. For Kathy Kreisler, the most important thing about this service was that it kept her mother-in-law and her father-in-law away from opportunities to ask questions that might lead them to discover or infer how she really felt about Caldwell Young. They had to know, or at least the mother had to know how Freddie had plowed between the thighs of so many of his female students. Any man in The Church who had not married by the end of his twenties was a glaring exception, or in the Japanese way of putting it, a nail sticking out, begging to be pounded down. With no real deep dark secrets about Freddie left to unearth, that left only Kathy for his parents to excavate.

Thanks to the disappearance of _Kasei_, the worst question Kathy had fielded by 9:00 PM was "When do you think Conner will get a brother or a sister?" Kathy avoided blurting out her most heartfelt hope: Never, unless Freddie died so she could marry Cal. As the prayer service broke up, she checked her cell. There were no voicemails, no text messages. Now she was sure that asking Cal to stay over with that old reporter woman had been overkill; his parents were clearly tired. In fact, Kathy Kriesler felt confident enough to ask, "Would you like me to call a cab for you? It can take awhile to get one here. None of the drivers seems to know how to find our Temple here." The mission center was a detached annex to the Temple. As she had expected, Freddie showed a mix of guilt and relief. Maybe his mother never would let him know that she knew. And just maybe his dad, too.

"Maybe we should be going, Honey" tumbled golden sweet from her mother-in-law's lips. Tomorrow they'd be on the _Shikansen_ for Kyoto, with Freddie—but Conner would be sick, so Kathy would have to stay behind. Was Cal coming back, or staying with...

"I can't get a good signal here," Kathy lied. "I'll go out—"

Her cell rang. Her father-in-law was in the middle of another eye-squeezing yawn, but Freddie's mom's eyes flashed. Trying to explain the lie away would only make it worse. Kathy answered her phone. "_Moshi moshi," _she said, hoping it was a wrong number.

"Kreisler-san," came the response. It was Braxton's prostitute wife. "Has Braxton-san returned to your mission center?"

"I don't think so. I'll check for you if you want, but he's usually not back until after midnight. He shouldn't be far away from your school—are you there? And why are you calling me? He has a cell. All our people working the streets have cells."

"You do not know about the police?" asked Braxton's wife.

"Police?" asked Kathy.

"The police took him away along with Young-san and the two others who came with him this morning."

Kathy exclaimed, "They actually _arrested_ them? Just because the ones tagging along with Cal didn't have their permits yet?"

Braxton's wife said, "There was a murder. The police have taken away others. Are you certain the police have not called your center about this?"

"Wait...I'll call you back." Kathy turned off her phone and barked: "Freddie! Give me your phone!"

"It's in the office. I'll go—"

"Jesus H Christ!" said Kathy Kreisler, storming off to the mission office, where she found on the putative Mission President's cellphone dozens of missed calls and text messages from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. And, of course, dozens of emails she hadn't thought of checking since Freddie's parents had showed up.

* * *

Arima Yukino was allowed to look through the one-way mirror briefly because she was Lieutenant Arima's wife, and also because the current Chief of Detectives agreed with former chief Kotobuki that as a plastic surgeon she just might notice something worthwhile. She could see the swarthy _gaijin_ talking, answering her husband's questions, but the speaker was switched off, so she could hear nothing of what was said in the interrogation room. "It's consistent with frostbite," she said of Henry Stewart's face.

"What about the technique? Is it really American?" asked the current chief.

Yukino said, "I don't see anything that tells me it isn't. The reason his nose still needs more work is that his forehead has so much damage. The usual technique to replace a nose is to put skin expanders in the forehead until there is enough extra skin to cut loose like this." She traced out the incision lines on her own forehead. "The flap is left attached here. After a half-twist, you bend it into a nose shape and suture it to the cheeks, leaving openings for the nostrils. The expanders will have forced enough extra skin to grow so that it it can be pulled together to cover the new wound in the forehead. But so much of the forehead is scar tissue. I wouldn't have done it at all. I think a prosthetic nose would have been a better solution. Certainly cheaper, and it could hardly have looked worse. Poor man. What is the crime?"

"He may be involved in a murder," said the current chief.

Yukino said, "Because of the hooks? They would come loose with the first blow. And he couldn't grip a knife or a gun well enough to use them unless the victim was helpless. I've never seen a powered prosthetic with the strength of an ordinary human hand that doesn't need machinery many times larger than any human arm. In the future, yes, but I've never seen a real time machine, either. Is the victim a foreigner too?"

"Maybe your husband will tell you," said former chief Kotobuki, closing the blinds, which automatically brought up the room lights. "We want to be as sure as we can this man is who he is supposed to be. He may not be able to harm anyone, but he would be able to attract the attention of others away from the actual assassin, as a co-conspirator, a dupe, or just by being on the scene by chance. Arima-sensei, many years ago I saw an ear growing on a mouse. Couldn't a replacement nose be grown the same way?"

Dr. Arima said, "Some have. There were still tissue rejection problems. Someday we will be able to grow perfect body parts, including organs. But it looks now that the only ways to do it will begin from using stem cells from fetal tissue. Perhaps we shouldn't learn to do it. But of course, we will...did you ever wonder what our world would be like if we all lived forever?"

"Everyone wishes it were that way," said Kotobuki.

"Not _everyone_," snapped Arima Yukino. "There would be no room for children in such a world. Are we finished here?"

"Yes," said the current Chief of Detectives. When the doctor was gone, he asked, "Why did she get so angry?"

"Her daughter is in labor," said the former Chief of Detectives.

Absorbing that, the current chief of detectives thought for a few moments, and then pressed the button to signal the interrogator that he was wanted outside. Once the interrogator was before him, the chief said, "Arima-san, that's enough. You've been on duty for almost 50 hours. You are off-duty now, and you will not return for duty for the next 24 hours—no, make that the next 36 hours. You seem to be under the delusion that you are indispensable here. I have many other detectives, even some other Detective Lieutenants—even Captains. And from here on, if you ever are on duty for more than 24 hours, you will write a full report explaining why, and expect to explain again to myself, and quite possibly to the Chief of the Force. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Chief."

"Good. Get out of here." Once Arima was gone, and the Chief was sure he was really gone, and that he was alone with Kotobuki, he sighed, and said to himself, "Now what am I going to do without Arima-san?"

"You still have me, if you—"

"You get out of here, too," insisted the current Chief of Detectives.

"Not until you release the American missionaries. It was foolish to bring them in at all. We may have avoided trouble with the United States because of the Martian tragedy, but we can't be sure for a long time. Things like this can bring trouble months or years later."

"Are you telling me that if I didn't bring in the missionaries that I might keep this job until I retire? Like you did, Taizō?"

"No. Tarō. You will lose your job because of this no matter what. At least one of the eight million gods of Japan was not watching over you this morning. I know that all of them were guarding me every day I was on the Force. You should have known this already, Yamada-san, as well as you know your own name."

"Yes, the same name as Yamada-sama," said that one of the thousands of Yamada Tarōs then living in Japan.

* * *

Sawamura Seiji was standing in the street, smoking, something he'd done only a few times since he found his Midori was...

The missionaries had been released; Seiji saw the three red-haired men and the Native American—thanks to Midori and her mother, Seiji had learned about these "Indians" of America, and even came to know one of them, an old shaman—before the shaman died. Sawamura extinguished his cigarette by pinching off the lit end and rubbing out the embers where they fell. He stuffed the rest into a pocket, not because he was saving it but because Midori had made him into a man that never littered—which was also a good behavior for a police officer. He'd never compromised a crime scene.

Sakuma-san was with them. When had she come? She must have been waiting...how had Sawamura missed seeing her?

Young-san recognized Sawamura before Sawamura spoke. "Officer Sawamura," he said. "Your day was even longer than ours?"

"Behave as if we are shaking hands," said Sawamura before passing the cell to Caldwell Young. "There are cameras here, too. I will tell you when there are none."

Even Joe Hill inferred that he should follow Young's lead. And so they spoke of nothing consequential until Sawamura Seiji had found a malodorous gap between run-down buildings that was somehow near the Shinjuku Station complex. "That place is a pink salon, and this place is a cheap soapland. Places like this spring up around all the main stations. They go in and out of business quickly. And they find ways to counter the police cameras; they have to to stay in business at all. Quite a lot of them have their own cameras so they can blackmail customers."

"What did he say?" asked Joe Hill.

"I'll explain it later," said Henry Stewart. "Please go on."

"I concealed Young-san's phone, the one he uses to talk to Saotome-san. I have not checked it. Just getting it from my uniform into my street clothes was a risk. You all have phones given to you by your priest?"

"From the mission center," said Young. "Two, one for each two-man team."

"Smash them, now. They will have tracers, and probably the ability to record sound even when you have switched them off. Sakuma-san, did you spend time inside the police station?"

"Yes," said the girl, cursed with the face of her father, but blessed with grace and every virtue that mattered.

"And they asked to keep your phone until you left? Of course they did. Destroy it," ordered Sawamura.

"Are we really suspects?" asked Caldwell Young.

Sawamura said, "You are _gaijin_, and you have connections to Yamada-sama, and to the _oyabun_. You are missionaries. Midori's mother has told me that your religion has many enemies in your own country. You do have a friend in our new Prime Minister, but our Prime Ministers don't have the kind of power your Presidents have. You should go back to America now. Did they give you back your passports when they let you go?"

Caldwell Young said, "Our passports are kept by the Mission President. It is this way in every mission."

"Are you telling us that we could be _framed_?" asked Zeke Braxton, using the American English colloquialism.

"He means 'convicted using false evidence,'" said Caldwell Young. "That seems...fantastic."

"The world is stranger than you think it is," said Sawamura. "I have seen things...I could be wrong. But what if I am not wrong? Go, now, because you may not be able to go soon. I saw...I saw..."

Braxton's secret wife spoke up. "Did you see the _shinigami_?"

At the instant Braxton's Miyuki said "_shinigami_" Caldwell Young's familiar demon reappeared. Ignoring the little Mara, Caldwell explained in English, "A _shinigami_ is a death god, something like a Japanese valkyrie."

"Not 'something like,'" corrected Mara's small avatar. "She is the valkyrie Gudr, and her scythe was made by Skuld herself."

"Jesus save us! Stan wasn't crazy!" cried Joe Hill.

"She is yours," said Henry Stewart. "Your familiar demon. She belongs to you, doesn't she?"

"I belong to myself, Yawner's spawn," snapped the little Mara. "Young-san doesn't know a single spell. He hasn't even asked to learn any."

"You said 'Skuld'," said Miyuki Braxton. "_Our_ Skuld?"

"Yes," said Mara. "_Sukurudo_, Seiji-kun. _REALLY_." The last word echoed within Caldwell Young, the same impossible chorus—and within his policeman friend, he was sure. Mara returned to human speech. "I can't tell you all of what was said."

"Skuld and the _oyabun_ spoke," said Sawamura.

"Yes. This I can tell you: Lord Matsuura asked for Skuld to let her die. Now, all of you, shut up and just listen. None of you has the right education for this, so I'll try to give you enough, for now. Let's begin with a bit from the Prose Edda. It goes like this: _These are called __**Valkyrs**__: them __**Odin**_ _sends to every battle; they determine men's feyness and award victory. __**Gudr**_ _and __**Róta**_ _and the youngest __**Norn**__, she who is called __**Skuld**__, ride ever to take the slain and decide fights. _We can continue the lesson on the train, if we catch the last one."

Notes

It is widely believed that any child born in a Disney park will get a free pass for life. It's not true. Disney corporation really does worry that women will try to give birth in one of their theme parks. It's a bad idea, both for Disney Corporation who could get sued big-time and lose, and for babies and moms who could die because of an urban legend.

"Yamada Tarō" (山田太郎 ) is a stereotypical name for a man in Japan. It is filled in on some sample forms, much as "John Doe" in the United States. The Japanese counterpart to "Jane Doe" is "Yamada Hanako" (山田花子).

**Eight Million Gods of Japan**. A conventional expression, which I hope is genuine. I "borrowed" it from James Michener.


	14. Chapter 13 Tanngrisni

Checking the number, Kathy took the call. "Heather? Is Cal with you?"

"Cal? Oh, Caldwell," said the reporter. "No. Listen, I haven't read your emails and I haven't listened to your voicemails, and I won't, I don't have time for it. The police let Caldwell and the other boys go. They haven't come back to the mission center?"

Kathy Kreisler said, "No, none of them have, and their phones are out of service."

Heather Saotome said, "Maybe they missed the last train. I don't have any messages from Caldwell. Maybe he went to my place, like you told him."

Kathy took awhile to absorb that one. "Cal told you that?"

"And about your in-laws visiting," said Heather Saotome. "There's no land line to my place for a regular phone, but I'm on my way there. If Caldwell's there, I'll call you. Should I use this number again?"

* * *

"This is our home," said Sawamura Seiji. "It really belongs to Midori's family, of course. It's too expensive for a simple police officer."

"Certainly, for an honest police officer like Sawamura-_junsa_," said the little demon Mara.

Unseen motors swung open the tall doors of the gate, wide enough for a car or for most ambulances Caldwell Young had seen on Tokyo streets. The six had been expecting to be buzzed through the normal-sized door at the side of the gate, even Sawamura. Sawamura led the four missionaries and the current student president of Mizushō into the courtyard. Two women emerged from the mansion. One of them ran to embrace Sawamura. The other waited, arm out, while the little demon flew to her, lighted on her arm like a hawk, and then scampered along her arm until she merged into the main portion of herself.

* * *

Heather Saotome entered "her" apartment and found Yamada Tarō waiting there, along with his two bodyguards Nakajima and Tsujimoto. That he did not send them away immediately told Heather something worth remembering before she heard his first words. Heather Saotome's first word to the old _keiretsu_ head were: "I haven't been able to reach Gorō-san. Has he been arrested?"

"No one has told me that he has," Yamada said. "So, your sources are also failing to perform?"

"So far," said Heather. "We might have guests soon. My boyfriend and the other missionary boys have been released by the police, but he isn't answering his phones. The leader of the missionaries told Young-san to stay with me tonight, so they could be close by, if they caught the last trains."

"You are speaking of Young-san's old lover?" said the old man with sepulcher-dead humor.

"I see you have met Mrs. Kreisler yourself, Yamada-sama," Heather rebounded.

Nakajima said, "Perhaps we should leave now. The police may be following the missionaries."

"Why would the police do that?" asked Yamada.

Nakajima said, "To find Gorō-san. They know he is involved with their church."

"Then they would have already checked out the mission center," said Heather, "Or they will be watching it to see who comes and goes. Or both. And they'll be monitoring the phones and the internet traffic."

Nakajima said, "Yes, if they are looking for Gorō-san."

Tsujimoto suggested, "Chief Kotobuki could tell us what's going on now, maybe."

"And he could also not tell us," said Yamada. "Thank you, Nakajima-san. Your advice is excellent, as always. But I will be staying here. Gorō-san still might be coming. Saotome-san, you must have a theory or two about the case. Tell me one where one of my grandsons does not kill the other one, if you have such a theory."

Heather Saotome said, "If Gorō could kill any rival, it would be Caldwell, not Rokurō. Anyway, a little while back I looked into the Z Agency on my own. Rokurō-san tried to buy it right after Hayashi died."

Saotome saw she had surprised Yamada. The old man said after a moment of reflection, "It could have just been a good business opportunity. Hayashi's connection with the Z Agency was common knowledge in the entertainment industry. Potential scandal from Hayashi's death might have depressed the selling price. Hayashi's organization is overextended. Selling off the Z Agency would have raised cash and eliminated an easy target for the organization's rivals."

Yamada might have stopped there. Not even Saotome the reporter asked for more. But Yamada asked, "Have you uncovered many other underworld connections to my older grandson, Saotome-san?"

"I had a personal interest in the Z Agency," said Heather. "I didn't look any further."

"But I sense you would have if you weren't so loyal to your employer," said Yamada. "So there is a connection to people who do murder professionally. But a connection doesn't mean a motive. A younger half-brother bullied for a lifetime by an older half-brother provides a fine one."

"You don't actually believe Gorō-san could have done this," said Tsujimoto Natsumi.

Yamada said, "There is an old saying from China that there is no power on earth greater than a poor wretch who is ready to die. Gorō-san's gentleness is usually mistaken for weakness. Gorō-san's intelligence is usually ignored because he is so willing to listen to other people's opinions. Anyone can be pushed into doing terrible things with enough pressure. If Gorō-san killed his brother, he would be quite capable of improvising ways to cover it up. The police, of course, are well aware that I am capable of doing many things to keep my surviving grandson from being hanged for murder."

"Just using money might be enough," said Heather Saotome. "But I agree with Tsujimoto, I think. If Gorō killed Rokurō, he would have called the police, right after..."

"Right after he called me?" said the old man.

* * *

Inside the mansion Caldwell Young found a large atrium with a two-section stairway leading to a second-floor gallery. There were many people there, but only two awake: A woman coming down the stairway, and her infant. A second woman appeared from a first-floor hallway as the first woman reached the bottom of the stairs, the second one in a Chinese gown, the first in a housewife's pants and shirt. Caldwell Young didn't recognize either of them.

"Young-san," said the young woman in the Chinese gown.

"Have we met?" asked Caldwell Young.

"Last year at Mizushō, when the snow came," said the girl. "I am Fujihara Sei. I am working as a Hostess now."

"I am Takei Midori," said the older woman with the infant. "We have never met, but I know of you from my husband and from Koizumi-sensei."

"He is the Host teacher at Mizushō?" asked Caldwell Young.

"Yes, the founder of the program," said Takei Midori. "Lokis'dottaa-san, do you know Young-san?"

"I know Young-san quite well," said Demon Mara. "I assume you know Sakuma-san or know of her. Young-san's other silent companions are also missionaries. Ezekiel Bradbury Braxton V is Sakuma-san's husband now. You would not know anything about Hill-san and Stewart-san because they never came to Kabukichō before yesterday. They're both from New Mexico, although they never met before coming to Tokyo. Stewart-san is a descendent of the famous warrior the Mexicans and Americans called 'Geronimo.' He lost his hands in the great snow last year."

* * *

Bob Waggoner was shocked that a Mariners home game would be canceled for a few dead astronauts—what good would it do them? He'd been prepared especially well for this one; he'd finally got KMAR to pay for the interpreter he'd found, he had cleared the post-game interview of Sentaro Kawanishi with the team manager and the general manager. And it would all be wasted now, if Waggoner had let it go. But since there was no reason for Sentaro Kawanishi to go to the ballpark, there was every reason for him to be at home, that home being in Bremerton, a 55-minute ferry ride from Seattle. Arriving at the residence with Mr. Mori and a sound/cameraman, he found Mrs. Kawanishi milking a gap-toothed goat in the front yard. Sure that the camera guy had got shots of the goat, Waggoner made sure the shortstop's mother saw him telling the camera guy to stop pointing the camera at her and her goat. Mr. Mori translated those orders, and Waggoner's self-introduction: "Hello, I'm Bob Waggoner from KMAR. Mrs Kawanishi?"

"Yes, I am Mrs. Kawanishi. My son has told me about you, Mr. Waggoner."

"I was supposed to interview your son after the game today, but since the game's been called off, I thought maybe I could talk to him at home. Can we come inside?"

"I will ask my husband," said Mrs. Kawanishi, picking up the milk pail and going into her house. After a couple of minutes, she re-opened the door and gestured for Waggoner and his people to come inside in the Japanese way, a downward hand-wiggle, as Mr. Mori explained to Waggoner. Kawanishi's husband and son each had a baby in their arms when Waggoner entered the living room, though Mrs. Kawanishi immediately took the baby from her husband. Both the babies were being fed from bottles, and both of them were fussy.

"These are my daughters, Mr. Waggoner," said Sentaro Kawanishi. "This one is Arare-chan, and Mother is holding Misore-chan."

"What about your other girl...Miyuki?" asked Waggoner.

"Miyuki-chan is at a friend's home now," said the shortstop.

* * *

Tanabe Akane woke up for the fourth time to empty her pregnancy-squeezed bladder, and then looked in on the children. Miyuki had one arm over her son. After thinking about staying up, Akane decided against it and returned to the bed she shared with her husband.

* * *

"Young-san and the Sawamuras, you will come with me. The rest of you, stay downstairs for now," said Demon Mara.

"I won't leave Midori alone with you," said Takei Midori.

"Bravely said," said Mara. "You may also come, Takei-san. But no more others." Mara began climbing the stairs.

When they were on the landing, Caldwell Young murmured to Mara, "Did you spell them?"

"No, Caldwell," said Mara.

Once upstairs, Mara led them to the children's room, and used her magic to close the door behind the last to enter. Then Mara carefully re-adjusted the covers over her child was sharing with Miyu and Miyo. Then she cast another spell leaving a momentary glowing sign in the air. "There. The children won't hear us now."

"What are you?" asked Takei Midori.

"She is a demon," said Caldwell Young. "She did something for Officer Sawamura. Are you here to take your payment, Mara?"

Mara said, "I made no bargain. I did it just to see what would happen. Quite a lot, as you can see here in this room."

"What do you mean?" demanded Takei Midori, holding her infant very closely.

"I helped bring Seiji and Midori together," said Mara. "We demons do some strange things. Let me tell you about another strange thing I've done. I found a baby in a cardboard box, inside a garbage bag. A very great death-angel came for her soul just after I found her. But I kept the baby. I put her to my breast—and she bit me. Either she was born with a tooth or Lilith gave her one. But I put her on my other breast. She made a bargain for a mother, and that mother is me. She is mine, body and soul, always." Mara bent down to kiss Hiyo's forehead, and glowing marks appeared on the child's face for some seconds afterward.

* * *

Seattle weather often changes quickly, but the thunderstorm Bob Waggoner emerged into after his interview was freakish beyond all other save the blizzard of the previous year, and more frightening. A lightning bolt struck a tree at the other end of the block. Waggoner actually thought of going back inside the house, but he felt Mrs. Kawanishi's eyes burning holes in his back. Also, the gap-toothed goat didn't seem at all discommoded. In fact the goat brayed, almost as if it was laughing. Waggoner led his people back to the KMAR van through sleet and hail.

The storm ended while they waited for the next ferry. Stepping out for air and cigarettes, Mr. Mori remarked to Waggoner, "I just thought of something."

"What?" asked Waggoner showing some of the annoyance he felt. Waggoner didn't entirely trust Mori's translations of some remarks made by the Kawanishis during the course of the interview, especially some made while the camera guy was in the toilet.

"We had hail and sleet today."

"Yes, we did," said Waggoner. "What is the deeper significance of this? If you can explain it to a dumb American."

"The daughters of Kawanishi-san," said Mr. Mori. "_Arare_ is a word for hail, and _mizore_ is a word for sleet."

* * *

**Notes**

巡査 Junsa, lowest police rank.

One of the goats reputed to pull Thor's chariot is named "Tanngrisni" meaning "gap-toothed."


End file.
